


The Young Man From the East

by FriendlyNonMurderingSort



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Animal Death, Fire bombing of Tokyo, Hallucinations, M/M, Minor Character Death(s), Near Death Experiences, Starvation, WWII AU, WWII Japan, amputation(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-09-03 09:56:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 49,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8707846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendlyNonMurderingSort/pseuds/FriendlyNonMurderingSort
Summary: In a world where Kazuhira Miller is rejected and seen as less than human, he must struggle to find his place. After the death of the only person who accepted him, Kazuhira wrestles with maintaining his pride and keeping himself alive in a land fraught with war and poverty.





	1. Japan

**Author's Note:**

> The firebombing of Tokyo? Shit's fucked up, but I recommend you to read about it because it is also very interesting. Not gonna lie, pretty heavily inspired by Grave of the Fireflies, also something I recommend you look into.

**March 22, 1952.**

 

For a late day in March, the air was sweltering. The trains running along their tracks were noisy, only serving to cancel out the noise of the passersby every once and a while. The hot air did little to staunch the smell of decay, making it worse as the hours went on. By noon, a man outside of the station was desperately trying to sell shaved ice in an attempt at earning a few meager yen. Schoolgirls wore their summer uniforms for the first time since the year before.

“Do you think it’ll stay this warm?” one asked her friends.

“I hope it doesn’t, do you know how warm the classrooms will get?”

They carefully tiptoed around the children gathering at the train station. Each girl clutched onto her schoolbag a little tighter as if anyone who was struggling to live would have enough strength to steal a bag. None of them would dare to, what with the American soldiers prowling around.

After seven years, the soldiers were starting to go stir-crazy. It wouldn’t be long until they all left, but the days couldn’t go by fast enough. It seemed as if they were looking for reasons to start trouble. Anyone who put a toe out of line, or dared to shoot the soldiers dirty looks would quickly pay the price. 

Despite being there to help the Japanese citizens, most of the soldiers turned their eyes away from the bodies that littered the station. Better to leave the filth to the dirt.

Kazuhira had chosen his spot well. A week ago, he settled down against a main pillar of the train station, facing the stairs that fed people into and out of the lower levels. Once, a man tried to move him, but Kaz did not have the energy to lift a finger. At one point, a woman left a rice ball near Kaz’s hand. When Kaz didn’t eat it quickly enough, another stray swooped in to steal it from him.

Kaz couldn’t remember the last time that he wasn’t hungry. The rice ball had no appeal to him, so he did not feel bad that someone else got to eat it for him. It felt as if for years he had gone without food; as though he had been struggling as each day passed. Now, Kaz felt nothing but exhaustion and bliss. He was so tired and felt ready to slump over at any second. When he was younger, Kaz had some luck getting more food at train stations. Now that he was older, it was far less often that someone showed him the same kindness that they did when he was just a child. When the sun was pouring into the train station from the stairs, making it even harder to breathe through the heat, Kaz sat up onto his knee.

His crutch long-ago stolen, Kaz shuffled on his remaining limbs across the train station. People avoided him like the plague. Others simply turned a blind eye. At least none of them kicked him as he crawled away from the pillar. Kaz took his next refuge against a brick wall, tucked away from the bright lights of the station and the wandering feet that could trample him. With no energy left in him, Kaz let his body weight drop to the dirty floor. A roach came to investigate but then turned away when it discerned that Kaz was still clinging onto life like the stubborn bastard that he was. Flies crawled along Kaz’s arms but had enough decency not to land on his face. Kaz let his eyes focus on something far away from him, finding it easier to stare than to try and keep them closed for a brief nap. He knew that if he fell asleep now, he would never wake up.

A pair of little feet stopped in front of Kaz. The child wore nice shoes and a nicer outfit. She bent at the knees and examined Kaz. She reached out to poke him, but an older woman was quick to snatch her hand away.

“Don’t touch him!” she scolded. “He’s dirty and sick. I don’t want you catching what he has.”

“He smells disgusting,” the child remarked. “Is he dead?”

“Let’s walk away from him,” the mother replied.

Kaz’s hand slipped away from his side and landed on the ground with a soft thud. Even the light impact sent a shock of pain through the bones in his wrist and arm. The last of his energy was fading as fast as the daylight was.

People came and went, barely stopping to notice Kaz. Another pair paused just in front of him.

“Is he alive?” a man whispered to his wife.

“I think he’s American,” she whispered back. They continued on their way to their train without a second thought.

Kaz took a shuddering breath. He could feel each of his ribs creaking with the strain to hold his lungs. The cool tile under the shadows was beginning to feel excellent against his burning skin. He had a fever but had no water in him to sweat it out. The best he could do was hide away like the bugs and the rats. Kaz let his eyelids slip shut with no more effort left to keep them open.

A man came by and poked at Kaz with the end of his broom. Kaz’s eyes rolled in their sockets. Eventually, through what felt like chewed gum, he managed to get his eyes open, although they were unfocused.

“This one is still alive,” the man said. “What should we do with him?”

“Leave him,” his companion replied. He was also going around with a broom, prodding at the other children that littered the train station. Kaz wondered when so many others had wandered into the station with him.

With cloudy eyes, Kaz watched as the children who were poked and did not respond, were thrown into a cart. The men went about, poking at the children and collecting the ones that were dead. The ones that were alive were left to die overnight.

The first man to notice Kaz wandered back and looked at Kaz long and hard. “He’s blond,” the man said.

“So what?” asked his companion.

The man knelt. He turned Kaz’s head to the side with the end of his broom. Kaz had no strength to retaliate. He stared up into the man’s face, hoping that he would take pity on him. Kaz had been dealt the worst hand possible, but he’d made it as far as he could. Didn’t that count for something? 

“He has blue eyes,” the first man continued.

“And?” the companion growled. “What does it matter? He probably has cataracts. It’s not that strange, look at any of these miserable sacks of shit. They’re proving it as we speak—malnutrition in children can cause cataracts.”

“They who?” the first man asked. He let Kaz’s face drop back to the unforgiving tile. Kaz didn’t notice the uncomfortable smack against his cheekbone.

Kaz’s mother had started developing cataracts before she died. He could perfectly remember grabbing her hand and helping her down the porch steps when she needed it. When she was fed up with his fussing, she hit him on the back of his head and reminded him to put on his hood.

“No, I don’t think so,” the first man said. “His eyes are blue,” he repeated. He turned to his companion, who threw a child no more than four years old onto the cart. “He could be American.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the companion muttered. “He’s going to die anyways. Whoever left him didn’t care about him. Why should we care about him?” The companion dusted off his hands and made his way over to Kazuhira and his work partner. “Besides, look at how old he is.”

It was true; Kaz was the oldest of the dying children at the station.

“If he’s an American, then he’s the son of an American who slept with a whore. She abandoned the kid like she should have.”

Kaz tried to form words. Somewhere deep within him, there was the slightest stirring of rage. It was the most intense emotion Kaz felt in months. How dare they say that about his mother? How dare they say that about his father? Kaz wanted to beat the living daylights out of them like he would with the children at the park or in his neighborhood. Nothing more than a pathetic rattling groan passed Kaz’s lips.

“Just leave him, already,” the man said.

The first man gave Kaz one last look and then stood up.

“How do you think he lost his arm?” he asked.

His companion groaned. “It doesn’t matter now,” he replied.

Kaz watched the two men walk away into a fine, white mist. Behind them, they dragged their cart full of bodies. Kaz reached out to them, but his fingers only twitched. The hand he no longer had could stretch farther, and he nearly clasped his fingers around the man’s coat.

A dog, lurking in the shadows of the train station, sidled up to Kaz and met his hand before he could touch the man. The dog snuffled her nose at Kaz’s hand, feeling out his palm with her tongue. At first, she curled her lips back but then barked happily. The dog bounded a few steps away and stuck her rump into the air. Kaz's heart lit up with a smile, but it couldn’t make it to his face. The dog was dirty, almost dirtier than he was. He had never seen such a dirty dog in his life.

“Aina,” Kaz whispered.

The dog barked once more. She had a very peculiar bark, one that seemed far too low for a dog her size. Kaz could recognize it from a mile away. Aina wasn’t a large dog, but she was big enough to be a threat if she needed to be. One growl later, and any bullies would be running away with her snapping at their heels.

Aina pranced back over to Kaz, her whole butt wiggling as she wagged her tail in glee. She pushed the top of her head into Kaz’s palm once more. Kaz softly petted the dog in front of him and let his fingers run through her thick fur. Despite how dirty she was, she was still incredibly soft. Kaz could imagine that he was touching the silk of one of his mother’s best kimono. She had only ever had two of them, and Kaz was not allowed to touch them. If she ever found out about it, he would be in big trouble.

Aina barked again and nuzzled her nose against Kaz’s cheek. She licked at his face, cleaning up his skin and rounding out his cheeks. In only a few moments of Aina being there with him, Kaz had the strength to sit up. He pushed himself up with his good arm and then wrapped his arms around Aina’s neck and chest.

Aina snuffled happily at Kaz. She lapped at his cheeks and his forehead and smoothed back his blond hair that had long gone astray. 

“Get off!” Kaz cried, though he was laughing through it. He could never be mad at Aina. Aina, knowing that he wasn’t angry, nuzzled against Kaz and wagged her tail fiercely.

Eventually, Aina slipped out of Kaz’s grip like mist and bounded away from him. Kaz picked up his crutch and shoved it under his armpit. He stood on his wobbly leg and followed Aina. She knew precisely what pace to go at to let Kaz keep up with her as they walked through the train station. Abruptly, the station turned from cold tile and reeking bodies and into a warm and luxurious field. Kaz looked down at his two legs and tossed his crutch aside. Aina sprinted into the field, chasing bugs as they sprang into the air in front of her. Kaz glanced at his right arm and watched as it materialized before his very eyes. Kaz wasn’t tired anymore. He wanted to run after Aina, but there was a tugging in his gut.

Kaz looked back at where Aina had brought him from. There was a man crouched over a child.

Kaz could hear his mother calling from somewhere in the field. She was demanding that Kaz listen to her right then and there or else he wouldn’t get supper. Kaz could live without one meal. He had lived for a long time without meals.

Kaz walked toward the man and the child. The farther he walked away from the field, the hungrier he became. Kaz’s arm and leg were dissolving right before his very eyes. Kaz stood next to the man; his uncomfortable wooden crutch shoved under his arm once more. The man had scruffy brown hair, a bandana, and an eyepatch. Kaz wanted to laugh at how ridiculous he looked.

The man had his hand in the hair of the child on the ground. Kaz could see that he was not a child, and he recognized the gaunt face that stared past the man in front of him. His lips were chapped and split in many places. His mouth was as dry as the desert. Kaz’s mother told him how he had his father’s cheekbones. Kaz could see them now, on himself, with stark clarity. They were high and pointed, accentuated by his sunken cheeks. The arm that Kaz had left was covered in bite marks, mostly from Aina when they had gotten in fights.

“Don’t leave just yet, kiddo,” the man with scruffy hair said. He pressed his fingers against Kaz’s neck and waited for anything.

Kaz could feel the warm digits against his throat, and suddenly he was no longer looking down at himself. Kaz stared unblinkingly at the boot just in front of his face. His fingers twitched without the energy to move his arm and grab onto the boot. The fingers pulled away from Kaz’s neck. If he had any water left in him, he would have cried. He didn’t want the man to leave. He didn’t want to die in a train station.

Far behind the man, Kaz could see Aina and his mother. His mother was gently petting the dog, and she looked beautiful in her best kimono. Kaz had never seen her look so serene and beautiful. She wasn’t in a pile of other bodies that someone threw a torch into. Kaz could almost pretend that none of it was real. Her black hair, sleek and shining like a true Japanese beauty, was trailing down her back in a graceful waterfall. There was a rare smile on her face.

She raised a hand to beckon to Kaz. “Hurry up, Kazuhira!” she called. “You’ll be late for supper, and you even brought a guest!” Aina barked in agreement.

Aina was just as beautiful as Kaz’s mother. She was the healthiest dog that Kaz had ever seen. She didn’t survive on mice and an occasional rabbit. She didn’t depend on digging up turnips and potatoes for herself and her master. Kaz couldn’t see a single bone through her shaggy gray fur. She was happy and fat for the first time in her life. 

The man stood, and moved. Kaz could no longer see his boot. He was hefted into strong arms that barely used any effort to carry his lithe form. Around Kaz, the world began to shrink. The field backed away from him, and the support structures in the train station grew thinner and thinner as the man carried him away from his filthy corner. Kaz reached out for Aina and his mother, but they were so far away. He could see the vague outline of his mother, waving goodbye to him for the last time.

Kaz wished that he could have cried.

 

**March 09, 1945.**

 

For an early day in March, the temperature was close to boiling. Paired with Kaz scrambling back and forth as quickly as his gangly little legs would let him, it was nearly intolerable. Sweat beaded in heavy droplets along his blond hairline. Kaz barely had any time to wipe the sweat away with his arm before he had to keep on moving.

Kaz was thankful that he hadn’t tripped over his own legs and spilled rice all over the backyard. He was finally starting to grow and was barely getting used to the changes in his body. One foul step could leave him in a world of pain. His mother was known around the block for how hard she could pinch an ear and still manage to drag someone away.

The very woman sat on the porch, fanning herself slowly with a paper fan from the store she owned in central Tokyo. She was strict about Kaz’s manners but not so much about her own. She sat with one leg dangling over the ledge, and one draped carelessly in front of her. Her sleek black hair was done up in a neat bun, held together by other trinkets from the store.

Kaz wasn’t allowed to touch anything in the store—he might steal something—but his mother could do whatever she wanted.

“Hurry up, Kazuhira,” she barked.

Kaz had a pile of things to transfer into a heavy stone pot buried just under the surface of their backyard. His mother griped as Kazuhira dug up the grass and the dirt, and continued to gripe when he asked for her help moving the large vase to the backyard. His mother had at least helped him in getting the gigantic pot into a hole in their tiny backyard before sitting back and doing nothing. On his next trip to the pile of items they needed to store safely, Kaz grabbed two full bags of rice in his arms and stared at a few stacks of yen piled up next to their other precious belongings. Dried fish, a picture of their family, his mother’s kimonos, and a comb that his father had given her before Kaz was born.

“Miss Chouko down the street says that you aren’t supposed to store money in these,” Kaz called. Kaz didn’t wait for his mother’s response. Either way, he would have to put the money in with the rest of the things. He managed to get a wad of the yen between his teeth, thinking not of where it had been previously.

His mother barked out a laugh. She kept on lazily fanning herself. Kaz envied her; he was sweating up a storm in the fading afternoon sun as he trekked over to the hole in their backyard once more.

“What does that bitch know?” she scoffed. “Does she know how hard it would be to start up the store again without money? The only reason we have that store is because your worthless father gave us the money to start it up. Do you want to waste it, Kazuhira?” she asked. “What would happen if the store was bombed and we had no more money, Kazuhira? What then?”

Kaz didn’t answer his mother. He tucked the money into the bags of rice. Maybe anyone who was looking to rob them wouldn’t think to look in the rice first. He went back to the pile and retrieved more stacks of yen and other items. The contents were mostly knick-knacks that held some meaning and more food; Kaz could leave it all to his mother to be prepared for the worst. Kaz didn’t want to stash away the candy—rare in these troubled times of war—that his mother had kept for him, but he couldn’t take it with him to the air raid shelters. Tucking the tin away with the other things made Kaz’s heart swell; this was one of the kindest gifts his mother had ever given him.

Kaz spent an hour more packing away their things into the pot in the ground. By then, his mother retreated into the house and was making dinner. Her eyes were beginning to fail, but that never stopped her before, and it wouldn’t stop her now. Kaz could hear her in the kitchen, frying something in one pan and making a stew or porridge in another. The last thing tucked away into the pot was the only picture of their family. Kaz did not know his father, and the picture could not help him.

Kaz was still a baby in the picture, held in his mother’s arms. His mother was wearing one of her two kimonos, and she was smiling. It was a soft smile, but so real and so unlike the harsh woman that Kaz knew. Kaz wasn’t sure if he had ever seen her smile before. The only time he got to see it was in this picture. To his mother’s left was Kaz’s father. He was a tall man, apparently a German man, and was not in Japan for very long. His mother said that he stayed for conception, through pregnancy, and only a month after Kaz’s birth before leaving them entirely. Kaz’s mother wasn’t sure if he was still alive or if he died in the war, and she assured Kaz constantly that she didn’t care either way. In spite, she had blocked out the man’s face with ink. All Kaz knew was that he was a very tall, broad man with blond hair.

“Kazuhira!” she hollered. “Get in here, or you’ll go without supper tonight!”

Kaz set the picture down and put the wooden lid on top of the jar. “I’m coming!” he yelled. 

“Don’t you yell at your mother, Kazuhira!” she called back.

Kaz shoveled dirt onto the top of the pot and patted it down. As he ran inside, making sure to kick off his shoes so he wouldn’t end up with a pinched ear, Kaz’s thoughts wandered. He blamed it on the picture and the lack of nostalgia that it brought him. Kaz did not know much about his life. He didn’t know much about his mother’s life, or his father’s life. Kaz couldn’t even tell the neighbors how old he was.

“Somewhere around eight? Maybe nine,” his mother said when he asked her a few months back. She said it with disdain as if Kaz had been a pain in the rear his whole life.

All Kaz knew was the shop his mother owned and the war. He was born before the war started, but now he couldn’t count how many years the war had been going on. Other children could easily say with pride when the war started, thanks to their schooling, but Kaz was not allowed in school. His mother and father had not married, and anyone who took one glance at Kaz without his hood would know what he was.

Kaz swore the only time his mother looked at him—really looked at him—was when she was seeing his father. He had his father’s blond hair, and his blue eyes as well. Kaz had to keep both hidden as much as possible. Kaz wore a hood whenever he was outside, and he kept his eyes downcast always. Few knew much about him, thinking instead that he was shy and reserved. He wasn’t shy; he was well disciplined. 

As far as Kaz knew, Miss Chouko was the only person who truly knew about Kaz outside of his mother and possibly dead father. He wasn’t sure if his mother had ever told any of the relatives about him or not. He knew that he was a strange mix of emotions for his mother. Pride, because he was a good kid. Sorrow, because he was the child of a man who wasn’t Japanese. A sort of haughtiness, because with Kaz had come with a rich German man who bought her a store that was rather successful.

Outside of Miss Chouko, Kaz knew that some of the neighbor kids spread rumors about him, claiming that he was born disfigured. For how he looked, Kaz might as well have been born deformed. Kaz wasn’t sure what he hated more, his German traits or his Japanese traits.

Kaz went through his nightly routine in a daze. The hours ticked on, and all he could do was wait until they heard the sirens seconds before the incoming air raid. Supposedly one was going to happen, but no one had been moved into the air raid shelters. Out of many air raids by the Allied troops, most had fallen through. The planes were either too high or too low and almost always missed their targets.

Only one raid, just a few days before, had been successful, but it had hit on the other side of Tokyo. Far away from Kaz and his mother and the life they knew. There were reports of more than one hundred American B-29’s on their way to Tokyo, but the rumors had yet to be confirmed.

At any rate, Kaz’s mother was unconcerned for their wellbeing. The bombs would miss, just as they had the past times. The Americans were no good at fighting wars; they were nothing compared to the Japanese army. Even the radio said so. All the neighbors said the same thing. The Japanese were going to win the war; they had the entire, prideful Japanese army to defend them. What were some silly airplanes going to do?

Kaz finally drifted off to sleep, dreaming of being an airplane pilot. He would take down each American city, one at a time. When his father heard of his success, he came back to Kaz and his mother, and they lived a peaceful life in Japan in their little shop of knick-knacks and postage stamps.

 

**March 10, 1945. Midnight.**

 

Kaz was so sound asleep that did not hear the air raid sirens. If anything, they blended into his dreams so perfectly of watching the world burn at his fingertips. He was torn from sleep roughly when his mother jostled him by his shoulders.

“Get up, Kazuhira!” she hissed. There was uncontrolled panic written all over her face as she struggled to wake her son from his deep sleep.

Kaz’s senses were immediately overloaded There was too much noise. The screaming of sirens—or was it of people—and the intense whirring that was making the very floor shake beneath Kaz’s body. It sounded like hornets inside of his head, making it even harder to focus as he was brought into the world of chaos around him. Kaz squinted his eyes at his mother. It was dark, and he could barely see past his own nose. The lantern had long burned out, only giving off the faintest of light in the room. Kaz couldn’t see his mother, but he knew that she was in a panic. Her hair was undone and messy, and she looked to be only half dressed. Kaz did not know what time it was, but he was drained. His mother continued to shake Kaz until he pushed her away.

“Get your shoes and your hood, hurry!” she snapped. 

Kaz stumbled to his feet and scrambled for his hood at the opposite side of the bedroom. He could not make sense of the noises all around him. The massive whirring that sounded like hornets now sounded like ten thousand factories working all at once. People outside were screaming and yelling. They were becoming harder to discern from the wailing of the air raid sirens. Kazuhira could hear babies crying and dogs howling in panic. Even the cats that lived in the neighborhood were creating their own storm as they spit at each other and tried to get away the fastest. Kaz reached his small dresser and began searching for his hood when his mother snarled in frustration.

“Leave it, Kazuhira!” she ordered. “We need to leave immediately, there is going to be an air raid, and the planes are not far away.” 

“I need my hood,” Kaz argued. He did not want to be seen outside without it. Even in the dark, his blond hair stood out like a beacon.

“I said leave it!” 

Kaz’s blood ran cold. He’d been yelled at, in fact, his mother yelled at him every day of his life, but never had he heard this tone from her. She was scared and angry all at once. It frightened Kaz. He froze like a deer, waiting for a strike that was never going to come. Slowly, Kaz turned to look at his mother over his shoulder.

“Just get your shoes, Kazuhira,” she continued. Her voice was softer now, and that scared Kaz more than the yelling. Soft tones from his mother meant that something was incredibly wrong. “We need to go to the shelter before we are caught in the air raid.”

Kaz nodded. There was less room for him to argue than when she hollered at him. He tiptoed around his mother and to the back door, where his shoes were. His mother followed him to make sure that he was doing as told, and then went to the front door without him. Above, not incredibly high in the sky, Kaz could see the first of the airplanes. Even high above him, they were gigantic. Seeing them stabbed a cold spark of fear through his chest. He had never been so afraid in his life. The air was still moderately warm, but chills were persistently scaling Kaz’s body like tiny mountain climbers.

“Kazuhira, we need to leave!” his mother called from the door.

Kaz glanced at the mound of dirt in the backyard. He could imagine the picture of his family, sitting at the top of the pot. “Go without me!” Kaz called back. “I want to get something!”

“Kazuhira, we need to leave this instant!”

Kaz ignored his mother’s warning and dove for the mound of dirt. He scraped away the soft, freshly-turned dirt with his fingernails and shoved the lid of the pot open. Right, there was the picture. Kaz snatched the picture and replaced the lid and the dirt all before he could hear his mother was stomping down the hallway, running towards him. She was furious with him.

Kaz heard the familiar whistling of bombs being dropped. Behind him, his mother fell instinctively to the ground and covered her head and face. Kaz, taking a moment longer to figure out where the noise was coming from, watched as a gigantic bomb fell into the corner of their backyard. It was followed by a heavy _thunk_ that sprayed dirt into Kaz’s eyes, and he curled in on himself and the picture just a second too late to protect from the scattered rocks.

Time stretched on for an impossibly long time. Kazuhira and his mother stayed like that for a few moments—although it felt closer to a few years—before they both had the courage to uncurl. Kaz stared wide-eyed at the bomb in their backyard. It was spraying a stream of fire into the air. He could see the glow of many other similar bombs all over their neighbor’s houses, and a few on the other side of the fence in the street. Some were stuck to rooftops, including their own. They were all spraying jets of fire, but none of it seemed to be catching the houses on fire. Kaz was more curious than scared. Why had the bomb not exploded?

Kaz’s mother was in a raging fury.

“Kazuhira, you little shit!” she screamed. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Kaz turned to look at his mother, and in that moment, the bombs seemed to go off at once, as if directed by a conductor. His mother was thrown back into the house, and Kaz was launched across the yard. Kaz’s head collided with a stone in their garden, and he passed out. 

 

**March 10, 1945. 12:15 a.m.**

 

Kaz awoke for the second time that night to screaming. His brain was everywhere at once, trying to collect all the information swirling around him at an alarming rate. It took Kaz a long time to realize that the screaming was his own as he screamed his head off. He did not realize that he was in pain just yet, but he could not stop crying, out of shock or fear or a mixture of both, he was not sure. Across the yard, he could see his mother. She was collapsed against their porch that faced the backyard. She was bleeding from her head, and there was a large, sharp chunk of wood poking through her arm. Hearing her son’s frantic, animalistic screaming, the woman seemed to come to life.

Kaz screamed until he wrecked his voice. He stared down at his body in horror and watched as flame engulfed his arm and leg. He had no water to put it out, and he could do nothing more than to watch his body burn.

“Kazuhira!” his mother cried, but her voice was no more than a dull cry in the back of Kaz’s attention. She stumbled over to him, leaving a spattered trail of blood.

The fire from Kaz’s body spread to everything that it touched. Their garden was alight in seconds, and any sparse plants growing in the dirt were charred into nothing. The bomb in their backyard was still mostly in one piece, spewing globs of fire all over. The entire roof of their house was on fire. Chunks of it collapsed inward and began to light up the entire building. All around them was fire, but Kaz could not see through the pain in his limbs.

His mother seemed to take a year to reach Kaz, but when she did, she shirked off her sleeping robe and threw it around Kaz. She was smothering him in a hug, but Kazuhira could not comprehend why. Did she not realize that now was not the time for a hug? Kaz tried to struggle away from her, screaming and hollering until his throat was raw.

Kaz wasn’t sure if he passed out again, but he was losing track of events. One moment, his mother was hugging him in the garden, and the next, they were running through the crowded streets. His mother had Kaz on her back, hoisting him up now and then. The air was burning all around them, and it was becoming harder and harder to breathe as the seconds passed by.

Kaz watched, half asleep and in an unbelievable state of pain, as a man completely engulfed in flames ran down the street in the other direction. The fire brigade was attempting to put out fires where they could, but the water seemed only to make matters worse. Above them, Kaz could hear more airplanes dropping more bombs. 

“Wake up!” Kaz’s mother shouted.

Kaz stirred himself from his state of half-sleep. He rolled his forehead against the back of his mother’s neck. It was becoming all too tempting to drift off once more. It had to all be one horrible dream, he was certain of it. Otherwise, his neighbors wouldn’t be fleeing for their lives, most of them on fire as they ran.

“You need to stay awake, Kazuhira!” she snapped. “If you fall asleep, then I will leave you in the street to die!”

Kaz rolled his head in a slow sort of nod. For some reason, her threat did not seem all that strange. He wasn’t quite sure if he wanted to be alive just then. Something was incredibly wrong, but Kaz could not put the pieces together. He remembered being in the backyard and getting the picture of their family. He remembered hearing the bomb; he remembered screaming until his lungs hurt. 

Kaz’s head rolled to one side, and he took in his right arm. At first, he was calm, looking at the limb before him. It did not look like an arm that belonged to him. It did not look like a person’s arm at all. The fingers on the arm were charred black and still smoking. The stench of it was making Kaz sick. He looked at his arm and noticed the cherry red skin. He was bleeding through his mother’s kimono, staining it red and black. Where his skin wasn’t red and or missing, it was bubbling and pulsing like a living being. Kaz turned his head away. The arm couldn’t be his. It was attached to him on accident; surely that was the answer.

“Get down!” a man yelled. To Kaz, he looked like a soldier. Perhaps he was a police officer.

Everywhere in the street, people obeyed or ignored him. Some were subservient and dropped to their knees immediately. They held their faces in their hands and waited for the next round of bombs to drop. Kaz could hear them whistling in the sky, but his mother made no effort to stop moving. Kaz noticed Miss Chouko, the sweet old lady from down the street, crouched among a group of other people.

“Miss Chouko,” he croaked, reaching out for her with his mangled arm.

Miss Chouko, by some miracle, heard Kaz. She glanced up from the safety of her crouch. Kaz watched her shrinking form as a bomb fell just a few inches in front of her nose. The old woman barely had time to react before jets of fire exploded from the bomb and enveloped the citizens around it. A glob of fire hit the policeman in his chest, and it spread over his whole body in mere seconds. Kaz’s neck was straining as he continued to watch the man, and Miss Chouko, as they screamed and squirmed. Miss Chouko was the first to fall; her face paralyzed in a scream as the fire continued to eat her body. The policeman fell second.

“Don’t look at that, Kazuhira!” his mother demanded.

Kaz found it hard to tear his eyes away from the gruesome scene. A mother with her child, caught by the spurting fire, was running down the street like the man from earlier. She screamed for anyone to take her child, but everyone was avoiding her. No one wanted to be touched by the fire that jumped from person to person. The mother collapsed in the street, and the fire from her body and the body of her baby spread into the plants she fell next to.

Kaz stared in awe as he watched the plants catch, followed by someone’s backyard fence, and then their house. Sparks were shooting into the air. The entire city was on fire. At this rate, Kaz was convinced that the whole city of Tokyo was going to fall. Everything was on fire.

“Help me!” he heard his mother cry. “Help my son!”

She wasn’t on fire, so more people paid attention to her. Kaz was not sure when they got onto a hill, but it was outside of the suburb that they lived in. Kaz could see people running around. He could spot their house, burning away like a lamp. Kaz looked out over the entire city. The flame was jumping quicker than he could blink from house to house.

Some people watched in silence; others tried to laugh and joke that at least they weren’t the only ones to lose their house. Some people stared at Kaz and his mother with wide eyes. He could see the thoughts behind their eyes. How did this woman have a blond child? Did she steal him from someone? How was it possible?

The policemen that approached Kaz’s mother were thinking the same thing.

“Please help him,” she choked out. “Help, you fucking bastards! He’s going to die; can’t you see that he’s going to die?!”

Kaz looked at his arm again. Could that kill him? He supposed that it could. He had seen what had happened to Miss Chouko. Kaz felt like he should have been crying, but he didn’t seem to have the strength in his body to do more than observe and breathe.

“Ma’am, he needs to go to the elementary school, they are setting up there as a hospital,” one policeman said.

“You think I’m going to run him all the goddamned way to the elementary school? You have a bike, take him there!” she yelled.

Kaz slumped against his mother’s back, and she hoisted him up again. 

“Ma’am, you need to be calm—we are doing all that we can,” another police officer said.

“Obviously not, if you don’t care enough to save the life of a child!”

That seemed to stir the police officers into action. Many others were starting to poke their noses into the situation, and the last thing the officers needed was to have people accusing them of killing a child.

“You there!” one officer called. “With the truck!”

The man leaning against his truck jumped off the back of it and stood up straight.

“You’re going to help us in taking injured people to the elementary school, we cannot expect people to make it there on their own,” the officer said.

The man nodded, and hopped into his truck. He started the engine as the police officer began calling and rallying for people with severe injuries. Those that could spare their blankets set them down on the bed of the truck. Kazuhira could feel each muscle in his mother’s back relaxing as she approached the truck. She set him down on one of the blankets, and Kaz caught a glimpse of his left leg. It looked the same as his arm. 

Kaz grabbed the shreds of his mother’s ashy sleeve before she could pull away, and he stared at her in horror.

“Please don’t leave me,” he pleaded. “I don’t want to go there on my own.”

Kaz could see his mother swallow around the lump in her throat. “You have to be brave, Kazuhira.”

Kaz didn’t like the way she said it. Any other time when Kaz went to the doctor, she told him not to be a little bitch and to buck up. It was only a shot. This was very different from those times.

“Please,” Kaz begged. Other people loaded the other injured bodies into the bed of the truck with him. A man that Kazuhira didn’t recognize wrapped a blanket tightly around him. They took his hand from his mother’s sleeve and bundled him up.

Kaz leaned into his mother’s hand when she put it on his cheek.

“I’ll be there soon,” she promised. “I can’t go right now, Kazuhira. They are only taking people who are very hurt. They are taking people like you, who need to go to the doctor right away.” She brushed away some of Kazuhira’s blond hair that was singed black. “Can you be brave for me?” she asked.

Kaz’s lower lip was trembling, and he could feel the backs of his eyes burning like the fire that charred his limbs. 

“Don’t you cry,” Kaz’s mother ordered. She was trying to look serious, but Kaz could see the unshed tears in her eyes. She took in a shuddering breath and put on her best scowl for Kaz. “If you cry then I won’t visit you at the hospital,” she threatened. “Then what will you do? All on your own? You’ll just keep crying, and the other children will make fun of you.”

Kaz blinked rapidly and looked away from his mother. He was frightened to the very core of his body.

“I’ll be there soon, Kazuhira,” she promised. His mother stepped back from the truck, and Kaz stared as the truck whirred to life and drove away from her. Red soaked her sleeve, but she didn’t seem bothered by it. Kaz could see the faintest trace of a tear on her cheek before the truck drove far enough away that he couldn’t make out her face. Kaz turned his eyes to the sky and watched as more planes flew overhead. He couldn’t imagine what else they could do at this point. The city was destroyed.

Kaz watched the underbellies of the planes open, and release volley after volley of the bombs. He closed his eyes. Kaz couldn’t look any longer.

 

Kaz spent his days in the makeshift hospital in a haze. He screamed for anything to take away the pain, but none of the doctors listened to him. The most they could do was give him something to keep him asleep. Even then, he woke up regularly due to the pain.

One day, Kaz wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but the pain was gone. Rather, it was there, but it was completely different. His skin wasn’t searing and the dull throbbing in his shoulder and just below his knee didn’t make him as nauseous as his burning flesh did. He could sleep peacefully for the first time during his stay. Kaz didn’t question the sudden relief. Maybe the doctors had cured his arm and leg.

Kaz slept most of the days away, and when he wasn’t sleeping, he was watching people. He was looking at the policemen and doctors carry out body after body from the makeshift hospital. Most of them had bugs dripping from them as they were carried away. Kaz could only assume that they were dead.

The doctors kept Kaz on one floor of the elementary school with the rest of the children. Some of them were perfectly fine aside from a stubbed toe or a twisted ankle. They were running around and laughing and playing. The doctors restricted Kaz to his bed. They threatened to use restraints if he would not behave. Now that the doctors there had medicines delivered, Kaz was in no pain at all. The fever he supposedly had was reduced to nothing. He was ready to be on his feet in a day.

The day the nurses came for Kaz to get him out of his bed for another child to take it, he felt sick. They carried a crutch with them. The child that was to replace Kaz was much younger than him. They did not have room for children like him who were taking up the room.

Kaz saw the looks people gave him, and he was all too familiar with them. They did not like him because of the way he looked.

The nurses left Kaz a change of clothes and the shoddy wooden crutch. His leg was severely broken; that had to be the answer.

Kaz sat up on his arms but fell flat on his side when he tried to put weight on his right arm. It was strange, but it didn’t alarm Kaz right away. Kazuhira tried once more to sit up but fell flat again. He balanced on his one arm the best that he could, and kicked away the blanket from his waist. One of his legs, the left one, seemed much shorter than it should have. When the blanket shirked away from him and fell to the floor, Kaz reeled.

He stared at the stump that was once his leg, and the bright red skin that was all around it. Kaz tore off the hospital gown with the long sleeves and looked to where his arm should be. He remembered the charred arm, resting on his mother’s shoulder. He thought that it wasn’t his. Now, it was never his. Kaz wiggled his fingers, but nothing wiggled back at him. He lifted his hand to touch his face, but there was no hand to respond to his movements.

Kaz felt sick.

He wanted to cry, but he thought of his mother. He thought of her threat. She wouldn’t visit him anymore if she found out that he was crying. He wondered how many times she had visited him while he was unconscious. He wondered if she made the decision to have his arm and leg removed. Sitting up straighter now, Kaz reached with his other hand and touched his chest. The skin all along the right side of his chest was bright pink and badly scarred. It was sensitive, but not painful.

Kaz shrugged on the shirt and pants that the nurse gave to him. He tucked the uncomfortable crutch in his armpit and hobbled to his feet. His foot. Kaz stumbled out of the small classroom, and into the hallway. Patients in hospital beds lined the entire hallway. Already, a nurse and doctor were approaching with a gurney. On it, was another young boy. Kaz assumed that this young boy was his replacement.

“I want to see my mother,” Kaz said.

The nurse sneered at him.

Kaz sneered right back at her, and she slammed the sliding door shut.

“What a nuisance!” she hissed from the other side of the door. “Hasn’t he realized that he's been here for long enough?”

Kaz hobbled down the hallway and was grateful to find that he was on the first floor of the school building. The smells of death and blood were overwhelming. Kaz could barely keep balanced on one foot and the peg of the crutch, let alone stay upright when he was smacked in the face with such offending scents. All around, people were crying. None of them were screaming, lucky enough to have pain medicine in their blood to keep them from feeling a thing. Kaz’s stomach roiled as he thought about his missing limbs. Was he awake when they did it? Did he simply forget it, or had he been completely unconscious for the decision?

Kaz spotted a woman that he knew from the neighborhood. She was helping pass out rations to families that were waiting patiently for food and water. Kaz waited just as patiently for the lie to clear out before he approached the woman. He cleared his throat to get her attention.

“Kazuhira!” she exclaimed. The woman looked at him, taken aback by his blond hair. She had never seen him without his hood before, but she recognized his face. He didn’t miss the look of scorn that crossed her features.

“I want to see my mother,” he said.

The woman frowned as she looked at Kaz. “Didn’t the doctors tell you?” she asked.

Kaz bit down hard on his lip. “Tell me what?” he asked. He couldn’t look at the woman, and his throat felt very tight. The urge to cry was surfacing again, but he kept a tight lid on his emotions for as long as he could.

“Your mother died, Kazuhira,” the woman said.

Kaz’s shoulders slumped, and he stared down at his toes and the peg of his crutch. "I don't understand."

“Did they not tell you? Kazuhira, she died in the final wave of the raid. Everyone on that hill was in the open; the pilots couldn’t see them from the air, but they could guess. They were all brought down by those bombs.”

Kaz turned his head away and bit back a sob. His chest was tight, and his stomach was roiling more intensely than before. He was hungry and sick all at the same time.

“Where are you going to go, Kazuhira?” she asked. “I could take you in, if only for a little while. Chie wouldn’t want you on your own out here. She was very protective of you.”

“My mother’s sister,” Kaz choked out. “My mother’s sister lives about three hours away from here. I’ll go to her.”

The woman in front of Kaz sighed, and made a face at him. “You’re a lucky boy, Kazuhira. Most people here don’t have any family left at all.” 

“I’m sorry for bothering you,” Kaz whispered. He bowed his head low and left the building. His heart was constricting in his chest. Kaz knew he needed to leave right away; it was mid-afternoon, and there wouldn’t be many people willing to give someone like him a ride an hour out of Tokyo. There was no way that he could walk there; that was truer now than it ever was before.

Kaz meandered and tripped his way over to the playground at the back of the school. The few children that were there stopped playing and stared at him. He didn’t have his hood on to cover his head, but at least none of them could see his eyes from behind the thick wash of tears that was clouding them.

Settling down on a swing as best as he could, Kaz used his crutch to push himself back and forth gently. His mother helped him when he was a child to get used to swings. At first, he was horrified by them. He didn’t like to leave her arms. He could hear her voice, demanding that he toughen up and be more like his father. It never bothered Kazuhira that he could only play at the park at night. In broad daylight, with half a dozen children staring at him, he felt more exposed than ever. He had the strange feeling that they were not staring at his hair. His lack of two limbs was strikingly evident.

Kaz nearly toppled out of the swing when a rock hit the back of his neck, followed by a chorus of giggling.

“Look at him!” one little boy cheered. “He doesn’t have an arm!”

“His leg is missing, too!” another boy jeered. “What a freak!”

“That’s so gross!” a girl squealed, but she was giggling too.

Another rock hit Kaz square in the back of his head. 

“Look at his hair, too! He’s a demon! A demon!” 

Kaz couldn’t differentiate one voice from the other. Biting fury filled Kaz and that made him want to rip their throats out. Kaz whipped around, sending the children a glower that had them all screaming. Most of them took off towards the school building, but Kaz was determined to catch them. He stood up from the swing, managed to take a single step, and went tumbling to the ground without his crutch. Sand filled Kaz’s nose and mouth, and he spat it out. He could smell blood and saw a few drips coming from his nose or his forehead, he wasn’t sure.

The children that remained burst into uproarious laughter.

“What an idiot!”

“He’s so stupid!”

“Did you see that? It was hilarious!”

“I can’t believe he just fell! Doesn’t he realize that freaks with one leg can’t stand up?”

Kaz was a second away from lashing out again, battling with pride and embarrassment and anger all at once. The first foot that slammed against his back tipped him away from the edge. He couldn’t believe that they were going to kick him while he was down. Another foot. A fist this time. Soon, it was an unending barrage.

Kaz’s anger was swelling.

“Fuck you!” he screamed. He could hear his mother, scolding him for being weak, and then praising him for standing up for himself. She always knew that he could, he simply needed to stop being a crybaby.

Kaz launched up from the ground with all the power that he had. The children shrieked, and many of them got away from him in time. Kaz wrapped his remaining hand around the ankle of one unlucky soul and dragged him to the ground. Kaz punched the kid straight in his nose and watched the blood splatter. It was almost instantaneous and more gratifying than shaved ice during the summer heat.

The kid screamed and screamed, but he easily pushed Kaz away.

“A monster! He’s a monster!” he cried as he ran away, bleeding profusely from his nose.

“Kazuhira!” a woman called. Her tone was anything but approving. “Kazuhira, what have you done?”

Kaz heard her and knew why she was angry, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He lay there on his back, staring up at the blue sky. He hated the sky. What right did it have to be blue? Didn’t the world realize that his mother was gone and that he was going to be disfigured for the rest of his life? Kaz turned onto his side as the woman approached. She was scolding him and pinching his ear, but Kaz wasn’t listening.

Not for the first time in his life, Kaz wanted to disappear and die. Kaz curled in on his body and started to sob. He missed his mom; he missed his home; he wanted to know where his father was. Kaz couldn’t help the childlike crying, unable to stop his tears once they began.

 

**March 17, 1945.**

 

Kaz found a ride with an elderly man from the elementary school and into Tokyo. The whole way, he glanced over the burned down houses and buildings that were once his neighborhood. Kaz could spot exactly where his house once stood. It made him sick to his stomach. All around the slow-moving truck were piles and piles of dead bodies cluttering the street. Most of the bodies laid stretched out, blackened corpses, but others were curled in on themselves in pain. Some of them laid there with their mouths gaping open in a scream.

Kaz turned his head to his foot. He stared at his one shoe and his toes that were dangling over the moving ground beneath them. He was not used to his crutch yet, and often found himself stumbling when he tried to stand without it. Nor was Kaz used to the sight of the burned flesh on his leg and chest.

“Napalm,” the old man driving the truck told him. “They use this thing called napalm in the bombs. You can’t put it out with water, and it burns everything it touches.”

“How many people died?” Kazuhira asked him.

“They think that a million people are hurt,” was the old man’s reply.

Kaz couldn’t imagine how many people were included in one million, but he knew that looking at the damage, it seemed to be right. As the old man drove through the suburbs of Tokyo and towards the central part of the city that the bombers didn’t hit nearly as badly, but they razed everything else. There was next to nothing left aside from the ash.

The old man stopped driving outside of a bank. He walked around to the back of the truck and offered his hand to help Kaz get out of the bed. Kaz refused to take it and struggled to the ground on his own. He would always be too proud to accept help from strangers.

The old man seemed unoffended by Kaz’s rude gesture. “This is as far as I can take you, young man,” he said.

Kaz brushed off the seat of his pants as best as he could. He glanced down at the empty leg of his trousers. He wasn’t sure if he liked it better tied off or flapping in the wind. “Thank you,” Kaz said as he dipped his head in a small bow. Kaz could hear his mother’s voice in his head, ready to scold him if he was rude to an elderly man who showed him such kindness.

“Do you know where you’re going?” the old man asked. “I can see if someone else is heading in your direction,” he suggested.

“I’m not going far,” Kaz said. “It’s only a short walk from here. I can manage on my own.”

The old man nodded. “I own a farm on the outskirts of the city. If you need work or any other assistance, you come and find me,” he said.

Kaz bowed his head once more. “Thank you.”

Kaz waited for the old man to turn and enter the bank before he turned around and hobbled on his way. All around, he was given stares from the people who could not imagine his pain. The stares of children weren’t as bad as the adults that stared at him. Kaz stood out like a sore thumb. Since the fire burned down everything, he had no hood, and no money to buy one to hide his hair. Added to that were his missing limbs. Even if Kaz was invisible, he was sure that people would notice him. There was no way that they couldn’t.

Kaz lowered his eyes to the ground out of habit and hopped along. Kaz was awkward on his crutch at best, not sure when to move it to keep up with himself. Every time he moved his left leg, as if there was still a foot attached to take a step, Kaz scolded himself.

He glanced at the tram station but thought better of it. On a crowded tram, Kaz wouldn’t be able to escape the wandering, prodding eyes of others. Kaz didn’t know what time it was, but he was aware that he had at least a two-hour walk to get to where he was going.

Determined to stick it through, Kaz steeled himself and made his way out of the city.

 

Kaz’s Aunt Akiko lived on the outskirts of the suburbs of Tokyo in a large house that she inherited from her parents. Kaz’s mother, an outcast of the family, was rejected of having such a right. As Kaz approached the massive doors leading into the house, he was not sure if Akiko knew that he existed. 

Kaz approached the door and propped up his body against the frames. He raised his hand and rapped gently on the bamboo frames that held up the _shoji_ —the paper doors. The house was confusing to him, with modern pieces and old pieces all mixed. Kaz would much rather be in his home with his mother, an old place that smelled bad and creaked throughout the night. At least that place felt like home.

A moment later, with Kaz scrambling to back away in time, a woman slid open the door. Kaz didn’t know if she was older or younger than his mother, but she had the face of a woman who didn’t yell as much as his mother did. She turned her nose up at Kaz, staring at him like he was a piece of garbage.

“I have nothing to give your kind,” she scoffed.

She was just about to shut the door when Kaz stopped her.

“Wait!” he pleaded. He hated sounding so desperate, but it caught her attention. “You’re Akiko, right?”

Akiko curled her nose, offended that such a lowly street rat knew who she was. “What’s it to you?” she asked.

“I’m Chie’s son, Kazuhira,” he said.

Akiko looked over Kaz for a very long minute. She was scrutinizing every piece of him. Kaz knew that he didn’t look like his mother, other than in the shape of his eyes. It was one of the few parts of him that betrayed his Japanese origin.

“Kazuhira,” Akiko said. She was mulling the name over, testing it on her tongue. “Chie wrote about you, once. That was a long time ago.” She paused and glowered at Kaz menacingly. “She didn’t say that you looked like _this_.”

Kaz did not know if he was supposed to defend himself, or let Akiko’s mean words berate him.

“Where is Chie?” Akiko asked. She peered out of the doorway without moving away from it. Kaz held back a roll of his eyes. Was his mother hiding behind a bush, just waiting to scare his aunt?

“She’s dead,” Kazuhira said.

Akiko gasped. “Dead? Is she really dead?” she asked.

Kaz nodded. He looked down at the ground and dug his teeth into his bottom lip. “The air raid on the tenth demolished our part of the city,” he said. “She got me to the elementary school but was trapped in a second wave of the planes. They killed her,” he explained.

Akiko made a noise that was close to mournful. She held a hand to her heart. “You poor thing,” she murmured. Kaz let the tension in his shoulders ease. “It must have been very hard for you, losing your mother like that. And look what happened to you,” she crooned.

Kaz bit down on his lip harder. Did she need to point it out?

“Please, come inside, child,” she offered. Akiko stepped aside but hovered in case Kaz needed help.

Kaz managed to get inside and take off his shoe before he paused. There was a set of steps leading up to the main part of the house. Kaz had yet to master going up and down stairs in his crutch. Without him having to say anything, Akiko was at Kaz’s side and helping him up the stairs.

“Thank you,” he said. 

“It’s no trouble, Kazuhira,” Akiko assured. She helped Kaz right himself, and then politely stepped away from him. “Your mother may not have been part of this family as much as we would have liked her to be, but I will not reject her child if he is in need.”

“Thank you,” Kaz said again.

“This way,” Akiko directed. “The sitting room is here; I’ll bring you some lunch. You must be starving. I’ll prepare a futon and the mosquito nets in your room.”

Kaz politely sat down where Akiko instructed. She wandered away for a few minutes and left Kaz to take in his new surroundings. There were modern things decorating the walls, but the house reminded Kaz very much of the one he lived in with his mother. It wouldn’t be so horrible if he could live here peacefully. Kaz could easily stay out of their way; he was adjusted to staying out of sight when he needed to. If they let him stay, Kaz could be a good guest.

“Here, some rice,” Akiko said. She set a bowl of rice in front of Kaz and gave him chopsticks as well. “Eat what you can. There isn’t much rice left.”

Kaz remembered the three massive bags of rice that he put into the pot in the backyard. “If it will help, my mother had me store rice before the firebombing. It should still be okay.”

“How much rice?” Akiko asked.

Kaz didn’t like the shining in her eyes. Her eyes reminded him of the eyes of a raven or a seagull, preparing to swoop in and steal his food. “Three bags,” Kaz said. “And other food. She had me save a lot, in case the store burned down.”

“Chie was running a store?” Akiko mused. “That’s good for her.” She paused and sat across from Kaz at the table. “If we could get that food here, that would help us a lot,” she said. “I have my own children to feed, and now you—we won’t be able to manage on the rations alone. I’ll find you a ride into town and then to your home. Dig it up and bring it back here, and we can make it last for a long time.”

“Do I have to do it today?” Kaz asked. Just thinking about walking back to Tokyo and then digging up and unloading the heavy pot made all his muscles ache. “I’m very tired.”

Akiko’s eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second, but then she shook her head. “No, you can rest for today. I’m sure this has been a very stressful journey for you. I wouldn’t want you to collapse, not with how you are.”

Kaz hated her for saying that, but he kept it to himself. “Do you have a hood?” he asked. “Or fabric that I can use? I know how to sew; I can make my own. I need one to cover my hair.”

Akiko huffed in annoyance. “You certainly do. I’m not going to walk around town with a boy like you. And I certainly won’t have any of the neighbors know that someone like you is staying here. It wouldn’t be appropriate.”

Kazuhira nodded. He was used to people hating him because of his appearance.

“How did your mother have a child like you, anyways?” Akiko asked. “Who was your father?”

“I’m not sure,” Kaz muttered. “He left before I was old enough to remember him.” Kaz turned his head away from Akiko. “I don’t have a picture of him anymore. It burned down in the house. My mother said that he was a German man.”

“A German?” Akiko parroted. She curled her nose and adjusted her legs. “At least she slept with a man who is on our side. If she’d had a child with an American—I would kick you out of here before you could blink.”

“He was a German soldier,” Kaz said, feeling the need to defend himself. “My mother said that he was here with other soldiers and engineers to study how we make ships,” he explained.

Akiko laughed at that. It was mirthless, and chilled Kaz to his very core. “Of course, that’s the case.” She flapped her hand dismissively. “I don’t know how much your mother told you about her life, but I can guarantee that she wasn’t married to this German man.”

“She wasn’t,” Kaz said. “She lied a lot to the neighbors. She told them that he died in the war. No one ever saw what I looked like, so they didn’t suspect anything.” 

“Your mother was a disgrace to this family,” Akiko grumbled. “It would have been better for the whole family if she had never left in the first place. She wanted to be her own woman, and where did that land her? A prostitute with a child that she was too weak to kill.”

Kaz sat frozen in his seat. He had a bite of rice halfway to his mouth but found that he could no longer move his arm past that point. Akiko stood and brushed off her knees.

“I’ll prepare your room. You’ll be staying in the old storage closet. If anything goes missing, I’ll know about it. Keep your hands to yourself, Kazuhira.”

Akiko left Kaz. Kaz set down the rice, and let his body tremble with fury. He hadn’t known about his mother’s past, but he didn’t need Akiko to shove it in his face in such a rude way. Kaz wanted to scream and attack Akiko. Kaz reminded himself that he was here because of the woman’s kindness. He shouldn’t throw it back in her face.

Kaz nudged the rice around in his bowl before attempting another bite. He was starving only moments ago, but now he was no longer hungry. Despite his sudden lack of appetite, Kaz ate all the rice in the bowl. He didn’t know if Akiko would be kind enough to continue giving him rice in this quantity if it was already so rare.

Once Kaz finished his food, he turned away from the table. The sitting room overlooked their expansive backyard. There was a pond and a small rock garden. Old trees were growing throughout the yard, stretching their branches over everything, though still managing to hold tall.

“Your bedroom is ready!” Akiko called.

Kaz called back a thank you and then got up onto his foot. He hobbled his way toward Akiko’s voice and peered into the room Akiko gave him. It was a quarter of the size of the room he had with his mother. The futon was crammed in between a radiator and an old, broken stove. All of it was junk that was too damaged to sell to anyone in their right mind.

Kaz bowed, and thanked Akiko again.

“Dinner is in a few hours when my children return from school,” she said. “I expect you to be as polite to them as you have been with me. You are our guest, and you should be grateful. Under any normal circumstances, I wouldn’t take in the child of a whore. Let alone one that is disfigured and shameful to look at.”

With that, Akiko walked away.

Kaz settled himself onto his futon. He had to curl up on himself to fit, but it was more comfortable than the back of a rickety truck or the makeshift bed in the elementary school. For not the first time in the past week, Kazuhira missed the screaming and the shouting of his mother. He missed her energy and the way that she would pinch his ear. At least she would say what she was thinking without being a horrible person. Kaz bitterly thought of Akiko and her harsh words. She was mean to be mean. At least Kaz’s mother had had a purpose in yelling at him all those times.

 

That night, Kaz exited his room with the trepidation of a newborn kitten. He was frightened of Akiko and her children. Kaz was frightened by the things they could say about him. He wasn’t sure if Akiko’s children had been told about him or not. Would Kaz be a surprise to them or just something new to gawk at in their home?

All afternoon, Kaz had heard them wandering around. They were a quiet family, unlike Kaz and his mother had once been. There was never a silent moment in their house. Akiko treated her children very differently than Chie did. Kaz could hear her shushing them if they were ever slightly too loud.

Kaz lost track of time in the small storage room. He stayed caught up in his own thoughts, mostly about how badly the stumps of his limbs hurt. The pain was sharp occasionally—when he turned the wrong way or rested on his shoulder at a bad angle—but for the most part, it was a constant throbbing ache. It was the kind of pain one step shy of making him want to vomit or pass out. There was nothing for him to ease the pain, and it left him writhing on the crowded futon.

When Kaz finally heaved himself upright, the sun was sinking below the horizon. The kitchen wafted wonderful smells in his direction, and his stomach growled persistently. Kaz looked around the storage room, wondering if there were any forgotten items he could eat. Kaz immediately thought better of it, doing that could warrant stealing in Akiko’s eyes.

Kaz wanted nothing more than to ask Akiko to deliver his meals so that he could stay out of their way, but he had no doubt that Akiko would consider that to be an even greater offense. Kaz hauled himself to his foot, leaning against the wall with his remaining hand. At the risk of falling over, Kaz grasped at his crutch. Now that he was slightly more used to it, it was easier to get it wedged under his armpit. The delicate skin there was turning red and tender from the constant abuse.

Kaz, gathering enough courage, stepped out of the storage closet. Each _thunk_ of his crutch sounded ten times louder than it really was. Overly self-conscious of his uneven gait, Kaz entered the dining room where he had eaten earlier and noticed each of Akiko’s children sitting around the small table. There were three of them; two were younger than Kaz and the third was a few years older than him.

The two youngest were sitting next to each other, leaving a spot at the table for Kaz. Kaz limped to his spot and sat down as properly as he could. It was harder to manage than it looked. There was no way for him to balance on his shins and was left instead with having to cross his legs. Kaz set his crutch just to his left. Each of the children scrutinized Kaz as he sat down, who in turn steered his eyes away from theirs.

“Who are you?” the oldest girl asked. She wore her school uniform, Kaz assumed she recently had gotten out of her classes.

“My name is Kazuhira,” he said.

“Kazuhira? That’s a dumb name,” one of the younger children scorned. “Don’t you know that we’re in a war?”

“I know that,” Kaz muttered. He resisted the urge to snap at them for their insolence. His own mother wouldn’t allow that type of behavior. Kaz was determined to stay out from underfoot of these people and their lives. He did not want to imagine Akiko’s wrath if he were to be an ungrateful guest. “I didn’t decide on my name. My mother gave it to me.”

“What happened to your mother?” the other young child, a boy no more than four years old, asked. “Is she here to stay with our mom?”

“My mom is dead,” Kaz said.

None of his new housemates looked mildly shocked. They took the news as if hearing about someone they had no relation to. Kaz did not find it surprising that Akiko had never told her family about Chie and her disgraceful son.

“Then why are you here?” the older girl pried. “I don’t know you. Are you American?” she asked. “You don’t look like you’re Japanese at all.”

“I’m not American,” Kazuhira snarled. “I’m German. My mother is Japanese.”

“Was Japanese,” Akiko corrected. Kaz did not hear her enter the room, but his blood took an instant chill at the sound of her voice. “She’s dead, children. Don’t ask him any more questions about her. I can tell you all that you need to know. Kazuhira has had a hard enough time as it is. I assume that is why he snapped at you because I know that he is not a rude guest. Kazuhira is very lucky to be here right now.”

Kazuhira lowered his head.

“Why is he here?” the older girl asked again. “Do we know him?”

“Miho, he is your cousin,” Akiko said. “His mother, Chie, was my sister. You children have never met her. I think you met her when you were very young, Miho. She did not stay with our family for long, choosing instead to open her own store on the other side of Tokyo.”

Kaz let go of a breath that he didn’t realize he was holding. He glanced at Akiko, trying to express how happy he was that she didn’t bring up his mother’s previous position in the world.

“Then why does he look like that?” the young girl asked. “I’ve never seen anyone Japanese look like that before. Isn’t it weird?”

“I’ll be the first to admit that it’s strange, but Chie taught him how to cover it up,” Akiko said. “You can help him sew a hood, Karin. I’m sure that Kazuhira would appreciate your help with it. He needs something to hide his hair so that he can stay here with us.”

Akiko began to assemble the bowls and utensils for each child. She served Miho first, including a heaping pile of rice in her stew. Karin and the young boy, Daichi, were served next and with the same heaping of rice. Akiko served herself, and then ladled out a few helpings of the stew for Kazuhira, but with no rice. Kaz glanced at the container of rice that was still mostly full, but he didn’t say anything about it.

Akiko noticed his pointed stare.

“There’ll be no rice for you until you bring your own into this household. I cannot afford to feed four children and myself at the same time. I won’t tolerate your rudeness. This is not your home, and I don’t want you to start acting like it is,” she scolded.

Kaz nodded. “Thank you very much for the stew,” he murmured. Kaz took the bowl and sipped gingerly at the stew. It was flavorless but looked much better when paired with rice. He wasn’t going to beg, or throw away Akiko’s kindness. Kaz reminded himself that she didn’t have to take him in at all, she was being as good of an aunt as he could expect from a woman that he had never met before.

The other three children snickered at Kaz’s predicament. When Kaz was finished with his stew, he set the bowl down and thanked Akiko once more for the meal. Kaz shoved himself upright with the help of his crutch and went back to his room at the end of the hallway.

“What an ungrateful boy,” Kaz heard Miho mutter.

“He has been through a very hard time,” Akiko said.

Kaz slipped into his room but did not slide the door shut to block out their voices.

“We have all been through a very hard time!” Miho argued. “He is not so privileged that he should not have to clean his own dishes. Even Karin and Daichi have better manners than he does.”

Karin and Daichi voiced their agreement.

“Now, now,” Akiko began.

Kaz shut the door to the closet before he could hear anymore. He stepped inside of the small mosquito net and set up his futon just beneath it. Kaz did not take off his shirt. He was not sure that he could bare to see the damaged skin underneath. Kaz curled up on his left side, using his arm as a pillow. Akiko had not been so kind as to provide him with something to rest his head on. 

Kaz closed his eyes and tried to block out their mean words. Instead of lingering on his new family, he thought of his mother. Kaz thought of the picture that he tried to save. He wished that he could have seen his father’s face just once.

 

**March 18, 1945.**

 

Kaz woke to the sound of the two younger children, Karin and Daichi, running around like maniacs. They were laughing joyously after their baths, and Akiko was having a hard time getting them settled and into their school uniforms. Kaz knew that his mother would have an ulcer if he ever acted in such a rambunctious way. Kaz would get a hit to the back of his head so hard that it would be smarting for weeks. He knew that his mother never meant to hurt him, only to make him think twice about his actions.

Even now, curled up on his side to rest his head on his arm, Kaz could feel the stinging pinch of her fingers on his sensitive ears. Kaz struggled to sit up, balanced as best as he could on his arm. Outside of the thin window, the sun was above the horizon.

“I’m going!” Miho called, followed by the front door sliding shut.

“Have a good day!” Akiko called back. Kaz could tell that she was still trying to wrangle the children.

Kaz grabbed his crutch and stood up, stretching his shoulders and neck. He felt as though he had been tense all night. Kaz felt grubby in the dirty clothes the hospital had provided for him. They hadn’t been washed in a long time. Kaz was ready to believe that they had been pilfered from a dead body.

Kaz stumbled out of the closet and into the main hallway of the house. Daichi sprinted past, nearly making Kaz fall over. He righted himself at the last moment and continued on his way. Kaz stopped momentarily to peer into the kitchen, and then into the dining room. There didn’t appear to be any food left out for him.

“There you are!” Akiko snapped.

Kaz whipped around to face her, his eyes wide.

“Do you realize how late it is?” she snarled. “If you expect to be fed, I expect you to get up earlier. You act like a slug and you’ve only been here a day. I want better behavior from you, Kazuhira.”

“I’m sorry,” Kaz muttered. He turned his head away from Akiko. “I’ll go into town and get the rice today.”

“And you’d better bring everything else, too,” Akiko warned. “I know the type of person that Chie was. She would save more than just a few bags of rice.”

“I’ll see if there’s anything else,” Kaz agreed. He dared not bring up the wads of yen that were stashed in the buried jar. Kaz would keep that to himself. If Akiko kicked him out, Kaz would desperately need the money. He waited, wishing he could shift himself from foot to foot. “You said that you would find me a ride into town?” he asked, keeping his question cautious and open-ended.

“I was going to until you decided to sleep in so late,” Akiko scoffed. “You’re on your own now, Kazuhira. If you’re not back before dusk, you won’t get any dinner, either.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kaz said. He hated rolling over and agreeing to everything that Akiko demanded of him. He constantly reminded himself that he needed to be polite, or that he wouldn’t have a place to sleep. Kazuhira wasn’t sure if he would be able to survive on his own. “I’ll make sure to be back by then,” he agreed.

Kaz walked out of the house, ever-aware of his steps that sounded very different from each other. Kaz still had no hood, but he would suffer one more day of disgusted stares. Kaz knew what he looked like. In a war against the Americans, a German boy was nothing more than an American boy. Kaz couldn’t blame the neighbors that stared at him as he made his way out of Akiko’s house. At first, Kaz contemplated asking one of the neighbors with run-down cars if they could take him into town, but Kaz didn’t want to embarrass Akiko. If one of her neighbors came asking about the blond-haired child staying with them, it would be the end of him.

Face pressed into a scowl at the ground, determined nonetheless, Kaz walked the uphill dirt path towards Tokyo. If he had any luck, he could find the old man again. Kaz wished he had asked for some way to contact him. Kaz knew nothing about him, but he had been gracious and kind when Kaz needed it most. It was more than he could say for most of the other adults he had ever met.

As Kaz walked, with the sun beating down on the back of his neck and his bare arm, he let his thoughts wander. At first, to his aching limbs—what was left of them—and then to his mother. Kaz didn’t like how many painful things were wandering through his mind. There was nothing else for him to think of. The sweetest memories of his mother were now tainted with the last time he saw her face. Kaz could see the tears streaking clean lines through the soot on her face. Her whole right side was soaked with Kaz’s blood, but she didn’t bat an eyelash at it.

Kaz worked his body on autopilot, only stumbling once or twice, as his mind went on its own way. He saw the planes that night, in the back of the truck, yet he didn’t say anything about them. At the time, Kaz wasn’t sure if he was alive. Some little part of Kaz hoped that he wasn’t alive. It would be easier to be dead when he had nothing else to live for.

The trek into the main part of Tokyo continued like that for the next two hours. Some parts were worse than others, paired with his clumsy balance and the uphill climb out of Akiko’s neighborhood. Kaz was lucky enough that most of the children were already at school, and they weren’t around to poke fun at him or throw rocks. Kaz’s grip turned white-knuckled when he thought about the children at the hospital.

That same part of Kaz that wished he was dead, wished that those children were dead, too.

Once he was in Tokyo proper, Kaz began to look around for any familiar faces. He wanted the world to give him something good. He desperately wanted to find that old man from the day before. Kaz would be in his debt forever if the old man gave him a ride out of and into Tokyo once more. 

Here and there, Kaz heard the puttering of trucks that were breaking down or broken. Not many people had them. How hard would it be to find one old man with a truck? Kaz waited for thirty minutes where he had parted with the man the day prior, before deciding that his luck wasn’t going to help him today. Kaz gave himself a morbid smile. His luck had not been helping him for a very long time. The luckiest thing to happen was Akiko taking him in, but even then, it was not much of a blessing.

Kaz could figure out where he was easily once he got to the bank that his mother often used. He traveled with her frequently, since she did not trust him to run the shop on his own while he was still so young. Although he had to wear his hood always when they went to Tokyo, Kaz loved the visits. There were so many people mulling about, far more than were where he lived.

The store on the very outskirts of Tokyo, before the suburban areas began, was Kaz’s next stop. He didn’t know if his mother put a key to the place into the other stashed things. The door was firmly shut in place, and there didn’t appear to be any damage from break-ins. Kaz briefly wondered if he could live off the things in the store alone. Surely, he could sell the things in there for some more money. Kaz began hunting around, looking for anywhere that his mother might hide a key from him.

“You there!” a man with a deep voice yelled.

Kaz jumped out of his skin, nearly dropping his crutch in the process. He whipped around to face the man, who looked absolutely livid. Kaz recognized his uniform right away—a Kempeitai officer.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the man snapped. He stood in front of Kaz, towering over him as though he did not see the scared child in front of him. “Are you trying to rob this place?”

“No!” Kaz cried. He shrank back from the police officer, but the man held a short distance between them. “This is my mother’s store! I was looking for a way in, I swear!”

"Your mother’s store, huh?” the officer scoffed. He had a hand on his gun. 

The action forced Kaz’s empty stomach into knots. He could feel the blood draining out of his face, and his fingers were turning colder by the second.

“Yes,” Kaz insisted. “Her name was Chie, she died in the air raids. I’m her son, Kazuhira. My father was a German, he helped her buy the shop and get her wares.” All Kaz could hope for was that a good story would help him seem more believable. “I don’t know if she put a key into the things we saved. I was seeing if she hid a key somewhere here.”

The officer narrowed his eyes at Kaz. He seemed unimpressed with Kaz’s story. His face was all hard-set lines deeply embedded into his skin. “Chie’s son?” he mused. “Chie’s son never helped at the store.”

“But you know her,” Kaz pressed. He was becoming more desperate by the second. “She had lots of things that are rationed now. Our stock always looked like it was low, but she had stashed lots of things.”

“I think I know her,” the officer replied. His nonchalant tone caught Kaz off guard. “She always had a pack of cigarettes to sell. Didn’t matter what day it was.”

"There’s probably some packs still left in the store,” Kaz said. “If I can find a key, I’ll give them to you.”

The officer’s dark eyes lit up. “If there’s not a key here, where would it be?” he asked. His hand finally fell away from the gun at his hip. Kaz’s whole body turned to Jell-O in his relief.

“We lived thirty minutes out of Tokyo, in one of the neighborhoods that was burned down. Fifteen-minute walk away from the elementary school, five minutes away from an air raid shelter near the river,” Kaz said. “I can tell you which way to go.”

The police officer nodded. “I’ll take you to the police station. We are fortunate enough to have a vehicle during these times. Then I’ll take you to your home.”

Kaz nodded, following the officer dutifully. “Thank you, officer…?”

“Takenaka,” he said. Takenaka didn’t once look back at Kaz during their walk. Kaz’s head was a whirlwind of thoughts. Shreds of doubt were weaving through the confidence and hope he had just built up. Takenaka could easily be lying to him. There was no guarantee that he wasn’t planning on arresting Kaz or killing him for attempted thievery.

Kaz’s prayers were answered when he was told to wait out front of the station. A scary looking bald man stared at Kaz through the open door. He had a cold glare settled into his eyes. Kaz looked away after only a few seconds. The last thing he needed was to appear to be a threat to a police officer. Kaz knew what the Kempeitai did.

At long last, Takenaka drove a rusty car out from the back of the station. He waited for Kaz to clamber in before driving towards Kaz’s part of Tokyo. Kaz guided him where needed, and in only thirty minutes they were outside of where Kaz lived. Kaz fell out of the car with absolutely no grace, his eyes trained on what used to be his home. He could still see the sloping roof, and the stone steps up to the porch, but none of it was there. The only thing remaining was a portion of the bomb, left behind for all to see.

“I’ll return in one hour, and then we will go to your mother’s store,” Takenaka said out of the open window. “I have a job to do. And you will do yours.” There was a threat in his voice that was anything but subtle.

Kaz gave the man a nod. “Thank you, Officer Takenaka,” he said.

With that, Officer Takenaka drove away, leaving Kaz in the street. A few other people were wandering around, most of them doing exactly what Kaz was going to do. They all wore grim expressions. They were the expressions of men and women who had seen what happened that night. Cautiously, Kaz walked through the charred remains of his home. He could map it all out even if he had been blind. It was frightening to think that there was nothing left.

Kaz carefully kicked a flat stone towards where the buried jar was. He hadn’t thought to bring a shovel. Even if he did, there would be no way that he could hold it with how he was. Kaz settled himself into the dirt, staring down at the ground for a long time before he started to dig. One hour was not a lot of time. Takenaka would be back, expecting a key. Kaz knew that if no key turned up, he could bribe Takenaka with the money that his mother had him save.

The dirt, packed hard by trampling, gave way at last and Kaz found the wooden lid to the pot in no time. He set his stone aside and hefted the plank up and set it next to the stone. Kaz sifted through the things at the top of the pot. His mother’s only two good kimonos. Kaz’s yukata from festivals as a child. He doubted the faded fabric fit him anymore. Kaz carefully placed the clothing on top of the wooden lid. Next were the bags of rice. Kaz hauled them out one by one, wishing he hadn’t complained so much about the weight when he had two arms. When all the bags were out, Kaz brushed aside the top layer and found the wads of yen. He counted each packet and rejoiced. Two-thousand yen in each. If Kaz was smart, he could easily live off six-thousand yen for the rest of his life.

Kaz tucked the money between his legs for the time being until he found a better container for all of it. He could not risk Takenaka seeing him with so much money. Kaz pried through all the contents, most of it being food and a few objects here and there. Kaz’s mother’s favorite comb, and other similar bits and bobs. At the very bottom of the jar, nearly as deep as Kaz was tall, forcing him to press his body against the dirt to get the last few items, was a small box. Kaz opened the lid to the box and felt all the strain and fear leave his body in a rushing wave.

A key.

Hopefully, it was the key to the store. Next to the box for the key, a container for dried fish. It wasn’t Kaz’s best idea to hide the money in the box with smelly dried fish, but it was the only idea he had. Kaz unwrapped a rolled-up paper of the fish, eating them despite the lack of flavoring other than salt. In place of the fish, he put the stacks of bills. Kaz shut the lid of the wooden box just in time to hear a car roll through the dirt streets behind him. Kaz turned and saw the familiar police vehicle. Takenaka stepped out of the car, examining Kaz’s haul.

“Chie was very good at planning,” he said with a slight hint of admiration to his tone.

Kaz nodded. “She wanted to be prepared for anything.” Kaz held up the uneaten dried fish to Takenaka. “Would you like some, Officer Takenaka?”

Pleasantly surprised by Kaz’s courtesy, Takenaka took the rest of the fish and ate them all in the time it took Kaz to stand up.

“I’m assuming, with the way that you look, that you won’t be able to help me move any of these things into the car,” Takenaka mused.

“I’m afraid not, sir,” Kaz admitted.

Takenaka flapped his hand in a dismissive way at Kaz. “Don’t trouble yourself. A kid like you needs a break. Besides, if there was a key in there, I won’t mind it at all.” He eyed Kaz in a way that told him, if there wasn’t a key, he would be abandoned here with his dried fish and his uncooked rice.

“There was a key,” Kaz said. “I think it’s to the store, but I’m not very sure.”

“We can find out,” Takenaka said, as he menacingly placed his hand over his gun once more.

Kaz hated to think that his life was in the hands of a cruel man, but there was no helping it. While Officer Takenaka began to bring things back and forth to the car, Kaz got into the front seat again and waited patiently. It took ten minutes for the man to load up the car, and start heading back into town. Kaz envied his strength.

When they reached the store, Kaz felt his stomach bottoming out again. There were a lot of things that could go wrong at this moment. There was no telling if he was going to make it through the week or not, let alone the next few moments. Kaz hobbled up to the door and leaned against the frame. He stuck the key into the keyhole and breathed out a whoosh of air when he heard the lock click. Kaz stepped aside and allowed Takenaka to enter the store first.

“Chie really loved this place,” he mused.

Kaz was surprised to hear Takenaka talking about something in such a fond tone. Kaz entered the store after Takenaka, closing and locking the door behind him. Takenaka turned and raised a brow at Kaz.

“I can’t reopen the store,” Kaz said. “I never went to school. I don’t know how it works.”

“Where are you living right now?” Takenaka asked.

“With my Aunt Akiko. She lives outside of Tokyo, too. She doesn’t know about this place. All she wanted me to do was bring back the things that my mother had me bury in the garden,” Kaz explained.

He remained near the front door while Takenaka perused the items on the shelves. Most of the items were essentials—toothbrushes, hair combs—and thus not very vital to Kaz at that moment. He saw Takenaka head towards the back counter, searching for a few seconds before he found a pack of cigarettes. Takenaka ripped it open and looked at the contents.

“She only ever bought the best to sell,” Kaz said.

“And I’m grateful for it,” Takenaka replied. “I’ll tell you what, Kazuhira. You keep the key to this place and keep those cigarettes back there for me. If I see you around and need a new pack, I’ll bring you here. Sound like a deal?”

“Yes, sir,” Kaz replied. He bowed to show his respect.

“Good kid,” Takenaka continued. “If you ever need something, you find me. I’ll take care of whatever the problem might be.”

“Thank you very much, Officer Takenaka. Please, feel free to take anything that you would like,” Kaz continued.

Takenaka smiled. “I like that attitude, Kazuhira. You’re as polite as Chie was.” Despite not having a match, Takenaka stuck one cigarette between his teeth. That alone seemed to ease the tense slope in his shoulders. “I’ll take you to your aunt’s house, and help you unload your things.”

Aside from Kaz’s final thank you, that was the last of his conversation with Officer Takenaka. Kaz guided him in the right direction, and they were at Akiko’s home in no time. With all three bags of rice in his hands, Takenaka trailed after Kaz as they approached the house and entered the building.

“Aunt Akiko?” Kaz called, peering into the home and toeing his shoe off. 

“Kazuhira? Is that you, you louse?” she called back. “I hope you brought back what you said you would, otherwise there will be no dinner for you tonight.”

Akiko entered the main hallway of the house from the kitchen, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows and wearing an apron. She glared at Kaz before finally turning her attention to the much taller, more frightening man standing behind Kaz. Takenaka smiled in a false way at Akiko.

“Kazuhira has told me all about you,” Takenaka said. “I do hope that you are taking care of him, or else there might be trouble.”

Takenaka did not need to say any more for Akiko’s eyes to fly between the baton on his left hip, and the gun on his right hip. She bowed deeply in front of the Kempeitai officer.

“Of course, sir,” she said.

“Now, as Kazuhira here is unable to do this by himself, I would appreciate it if you helped to bring in the things from the car,” Takenaka continued.

“Of course, sir,” Akiko repeated.

She shuffled out of the door and to Officer Takenaka’s car, starting to pull out boxes.

“That box with the dried fish, could you grab that instead of her?” Kaz asked.

Takenaka set down the bags of rice, and then stood up once more. “Why is that?” Takenaka asked, a curious gleam in his eyes.

“I put my mother’s comb inside of it. If Akiko sees it, she will take it and sell it.” Kaz paused, looking up at Takenaka and giving the soldier his best puppy-dog eyes. He knew the blue was unnerving to most people, but Takenaka did not look away from him. “It’s all I have left of her at this point.”

Takenaka accepted Kaz’s answer and went back to the car.

When it was all unloaded, Akiko began to browse the haul. Takenaka bid them both goodbye and left with a cigarette still between his teeth. Kaz, with his small prize tucked into his shirt, retreated to his storage closet to stay there for the rest of the afternoon.

That night, when all the children were gathered around the table, they had a wonderful stew with dried fish, and Kaz got the biggest helping of rice out of all the children. Kaz ate heartily and went to bed easily for the first time since the night of the raid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has a few parts lined up, I'll do my best to update it every month or two (towards the end of the month). Editing and all that takes a while, but I've probably missed something anyways. If you see anything seriously wrong with the writing, feel free to let me know! Don't fret, Snake comes in as a far more major role in the next part.
> 
> I did a lot of damn research for this story. I'm pretty proud of myself for dedicating the time to make it as accurate and believable as I can!


	2. Kazuhira On His Own

**May 14, 1945.**

 

Kaz sat in his closet in Akiko’s house, listening to the air-raid sirens and the far-off screaming. The rumors circling Tokyo for the entire week were that the Americans were going to launch another attack like the one in March. The Americans were becoming less cautious by the second; since the beginning of May, they had started attacking during the day. Nearly every war factory in Tokyo was destroyed, and there were no defenses left to take out the gigantic planes filled with the destructive napalm bombs. With nothing stopping them, every Japanese citizen feared that the Americans had a better shot at winning the war.

Kaz watched the planes as they appeared from somewhere out over the ocean. They always came in the same way, with a few planes dropping bombs in a general area, and the rest following with the real intent of damage.

The _shoji_ to Kaz’s storage closet slid open.

Kaz didn’t turn to meet Akiko’s curious stare that he could feel on his back. The longer Kaz lived with her, the more he realized that she looked like Chie. For the most part, he refused to look at her. It worked for both; Kaz didn’t have to see his mother, and Akiko didn’t have to look at her disgusting nephew. Aside from that, Kaz was simply tired of dealing with his aunt any longer.

Akiko, far too ashamed of her nephew, refused to add Kaz into her family so that they could have more rations. All that they had left of Chie’s stash was dried bonito fish; Akiko even sold her sister’s kimonos and comb for the sake of her family. The food he brought was dwindling away, and with each grain of rice that the children ate, Akiko grew angrier. For a week, Kaz hadn’t had any rice with his dinners, while the other children ate their helpings of rice greedily. Kaz couldn’t find it in his heart to blame them; Chie hadn’t even told them about his existence more than once.

“You stay here and make sure that no one robs us,” Akiko instructed.

“Yes ma’am,” Kaz muttered. He propped his elbow on the ledge of the tiny window, watching as the first of the planes opened their underbellies.

“You will guard the house, won’t you?” Akiko pressed.

“Yes,” Kaz said, with more than a little malice in his voice. How was a cripple supposed to defend a home by himself?

“Good,” Akiko said.

Akiko turned and left, gathering her children and shuffling them out of the house and into the street. Kaz stared, enraptured by the bombs falling from the planes and igniting the city below. The flames tore through the buildings like a knife through raw fish.

Eventually, Kaz stood up and shouldered open the _shoji_ that closed off his storage closet, and wandered into the house. He limped to the kitchen, shuffled about for some food, and settled on the last of the dried fish that he brought from his home. 

The wrap of fish between his teeth and a small plate shoved between his bicep and the upper part of his crutch; Kaz hobbled back into the sitting room in Akiko’s house. Manners be damned, Kaz sat down on the table and watched through the open _shoji_ as more and more American planes dropped their bombs onto an unprepared Tokyo.

After what seemed like hours of watching bombs fall, Kaz finally stood, an agonizing process when his leg got too stiff, groaning and stretching his back. If there was one thing Kaz missed, aside from the mountain of other things he wished he still had, it was the ability to stretch out freely without the fear of getting stuck on the ground like a turtle flipped onto its back. Kaz glanced at the modern clock on the wall; just after four in the afternoon.

Kaz left his last few fish on the table and limped back to the kitchen for a glass of water. Drinking anything while standing up proved to be something Kaz had yet to figure out. He turned to lean his back against the sink, using his one leg for balance as he drank from the cup. Kaz topped it off, belly full and ready to go back to sleep, when he heard a skittering in the sitting room.

Kaz’s heart leaped into his throat. Of all the times that he had been left alone to ‘defend’ the house, _of course_ , someone would try and steal something this time. Wary of someone that might have a bat or other dangerous weapons, Kaz slipped his crutch into place and left the kitchen as quietly as he could. In the eerie silence, the _thunk thunk thunk_ of his crutch sounded louder than ever. 

Barely daring to breathe, Kaz peered around the corner and into the main room of the house. He was expecting a grown man, ready to beat down a child if need be to save himself.

What Kaz was not expecting: a dog.

“Get out of here!” Kaz immediately yelled, not thinking twice about sending the dog running with its tail between its legs.

Between its teeth, the dog held one of the bonito fish. Drool was dripping from the sides of its mouth as it stood at the other end of the yard, prepared to flee if Kaz gave chase. The dog’s eyes remained pinned on Kaz, startled to the point that it forgot about its prize

Kaz limped into the room, standing just in front of the table. The dog barely flinched; it was tucked away safely at a distance where Kaz would never catch it.

“Get going!” he called.

The dog curled its lip and refused to move.

Kaz harrumphed in annoyance. “Fine,” he muttered. Determined to be just as stubborn, Kaz sat down on the table once more. Somewhere far away, he could hear people screaming. Briefly, he wondered how many of them were going to make it through burning alive.

After a few seconds of their stare down, the dog finally settled under the shade of the tree. It continued to keep an eye on Kaz as it chomped away on the fish it stole. With a few minutes of quiet munching, Kaz took in the dog. It was dirty; dried mud caked the mangy thing from nose to tail. Under the mud, Kaz could see each bone in the dog’s body. It was somehow living on less food than even Kaz had. Kaz noticed that its hip bones were the most prominent, sticking out like a sore thumb as much as Kaz’s hair.

The dog got up when it finished its fish. This time, rather than staring at Kaz, the dog’s eyes were trained on the fish just to Kaz’s left, still sitting on the table.

The dog was at the edge of the porch when Kaz grabbed a fish from the tray. The dog skittered away at the first sign of movement, but Kaz didn’t mind. He tossed the fish to the dog and watched as it ran all the way back to the tree. Kaz was patient, though.

Kaz continued to lure the dog in closer with fish until there were only two fish left in the pile. He held one in his hand; the dog inches away from him.

Erring on the side of trust, the dog took the fish from Kaz’s hand, being surprisingly delicate with its teeth.

“Sorry for yelling at you,” Kaz said. The dog’s ears flickered, but it continued munching around the bones of the fish. “I thought you were trying to steal from us. I guess you were, but I can’t blame you.”

The dog glanced at Kaz once more before moving in close enough to eat the remaining fish from the tray. Kaz, moving slowly, reached his arm out and put his hand on the back of the dog’s neck. It growled and bristled, but was far too occupied with food to bother shaking Kaz off. Despite seeing puffs of dirt and dust go flying, Kaz continued to pet the dog with languid, delicate touches. It only took a few moments for the dog to relax and stop bristling.

“Did someone leave you behind?” Kaz asked. The dog finished off the last fish. “I got left behind, too,” he said. At that, the dog seemed to look up at Kaz with a genuine interest. Hoping the trust was strong enough, Kaz settled his hand on the top of the dog’s head, and gently ruffled its ears. “She died,” he mused. “Did your mom die, too?” Kaz gave a weak smile, trying in vain to drown out the frown that was threatening to take over his features. 

In a flash of fur and teeth; Kaz cried out. His first instinct was to swipe his crutch from the table and lash out at the dog, but it was already gone. Cradling his injured hand to his chest, Kaz glared after the dog as it scrabbled up the small fence lining the yard, and disappeared.

“Fine!” he yelled, even though the dog was long gone. “You can leave me, too! I gave you my food and then you just left!”

Dripping blood all over the wooden floors, Kaz got up onto his crutch and went back to the kitchen. He was fuming, wanting nothing more than to chase after the dog and pummel it if he could catch it. He chose the dishwashing sink, leaning his body against it once more for support. Kaz turned on the faucet and stuck his wrist under the flow of water. Even with the rushing water, blood was steadily oozing out of his hand.

Even after the bleeding stopped, Kaz held his hand under the water. He was still irritated about the dog, despite knowing that it was partially his fault. Kaz pushed it too far and tried to befriend a dog that was only looking out for itself.

“It didn’t have to bite me,” Kaz grumbled. He pulled his hand back from the water and turned the faucet to shut off the water. “Stupid dog,” he growled, shoving his crutch into place.

Kaz retired to his closet, knowing that Akiko and her children would be back at any moment. The fire on the far side of Tokyo was still burning brightly, but there were no more planes and no more bombs. Kaz sat in the silence for a long time, enjoying it until his aunt and cousins returned.

“Kazuhira!” Akiko hollered, hours later. “There’s blood and dirt all over the floor! What in the hell were you doing in here?”

Kaz rolled onto his other side, becoming acquainted with the grooves in the wooden box in front of him.

 

**June 22, 1945.**

 

For the first time in weeks—the last time being when he accompanied Officer Takenaka into his mother’s store for the final pack of cigarettes—Kaz wandered outside of Akiko’s home. The air raid sirens had been screaming for hours on end, and there seemed to be no end in sight of the planes that were flying overhead. Some dropped their bombs on Tokyo and promptly turned around, while others headed farther inland.

Kaz nudged open the _shoji_ and peered up and down the street. The only noise was from the planes overhead, and the occasional whistling of bombs as they fell to the ground. Kaz made sure to keep an eye on some of the planes as he took to the streets.

He wasn’t stupid enough to wander in the middle of the street, instead of sticking to dodging between the houses like a mouse staying away from a hawk. Kaz didn’t know if the pilots would be able to see him from so high up, but either way, he didn’t want to test it. Kaz took the path down Akiko’s neighborhood, in the opposite direction of the air raid shelters, and toward the ocean.

There was only one thing that Kaz loved about living at Akiko’s house, and that was that the ocean was close enough that on a good day, he could smell the salty breeze from the sea. When Kaz was younger, his mother would take him to the beach whenever he could. It would just be the two of them, and Kaz didn’t have any siblings or friends, so he made up games to play by himself. The subtle waft of memories hit Kaz right in his chest, nearly toppling him over as the lingering muscles in his right shoulder twitched, longing to clench his fingers into a fist.

Kaz walked until his foot had blisters and the skin on his armpit was red and itchy. He stopped outside of another house, one that was close enough to see the ocean from the front door. Kaz settled himself on their porch, listening for the air raid sirens the whole time. If they stopped, he would have to run back to Akiko’s house, lest one of her uptight neighbors found him and turned him in.

He stared down at the dirt, letting his mind wander.

Kaz’s mother loved the ocean, but she never joined him in the water. She claimed it was because Kaz had made her body ugly during pregnancy. Kaz never saw her in less than a full-length outfit and sleeves. Even so, she was always beautiful. The beach was no different, lounging on the sand as she watched over Kazuhira. He would catch hermit crabs and show them to her, trying to impress his mother for just a few seconds before the crab would give him a painful pinch. Kaz remembered very clearly the one time he brought her a tiny fish cupped in his hands, and she snatched it from him and threw it back into the ocean.

At the time, Kaz cried like she’d killed a pet that he owned. Now that Kaz thought back on the memory, a soft yellow glow that made him smile draped over it.

“Who the hell are you?” a woman snapped.

Kaz scrambled to get onto his foot. In his panic, he slipped and fell and his chin collided with the dirt and the rocks. Kaz shoved himself onto his back, staring up at the woman.

She was a heavy-set woman with dark, beady eyes that seemed to glare right through Kaz. She had two older children lurking behind her, staring over her shoulders and down at Kaz.

“Well?” she persisted.

“I’m sorry!” Kaz blurted. Panic still flooding through his veins, Kaz struggled to right himself. The three in front of him seemed happy enough to watch him flail like a fish out of the water. “I am very sorry for intruding; I was just sitting here!”

“I should get the police!” the woman argued. With each word, her voice was rising in pitch.

“I didn’t take anything, I swear!” Kaz pleaded. He felt sick, having to plead his case to this woman. He knew how it looked; anyone would suspect a boy his age of stealing during a raid. “I wouldn’t have anywhere to hide something if I had stolen it,” he said.

“Lying little shit!” she snapped. “I know you took something! You could have taken food; it doesn’t have to be something valuable for an urchin like you to take it!”

Kaz did his best not to snap back at her. The woman hauled him up by his arm, letting his crutch fall to the ground as she held onto him with a bruising grip. He tried to struggle against the woman’s hand, but without his crutch, he could barely stay upright.

“I live with Akiko! She lives up the street! She can defend me!”

The name seemed to change the woman’s mind. A flash of recognition crossed her features. She held onto Kaz just hard enough for him to think that it would bruise, and then threw him to the ground once more. Kaz’s head hit the dirt with a crack, and his vision swam.

“Get up; I’m taking you back to her. If you’re still lying to me, then I’ll take you to the police,” she threatened.

Kaz bit his tongue to keep from daring this woman to do exactly that. He had no idea if his pact with Officer Takenaka was still in play, now that Kaz had no more cigarettes to offer. Something warm was trickling from his eyebrow and cheek, and he knew from the stinging on his chin that he was bleeding there, too.

Kaz followed the fat woman up the hill to Akiko’s house. The devil herself was standing at the front door, with her arms crossed. Her face was lit up with rage.

“Akiko, this boy says that he lives with you,” the woman said. She grabbed Kaz by his arm once more and shoved him forward.

Akiko’s face hardened. She glared at Kaz from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. Her firm position only tightened when Kaz looked at her. He was all but begging with his eyes, hoping that she would find it somewhere within herself to grant Kaz one more mercy.

“I have no idea who he is, but I have heard of a boy going around and stealing from houses during the air raids. In fact, I think he stole a box of dried bonito from me.” 

“I knew it!” the woman shouted. Not a second later, Kaz was face-first on the stone walkway of Akiko’s home.

Blood immediately gushed from his nose, soaking into the stones and the dirt between the cracks. His head hurt, and everything was reeling around him. Kaz wasn’t sure if it was the betrayal or the impact that set his world spinning like a top. Kaz couldn’t right himself, could barely lift his face from the ground. Tears mixed in with the blood, but he was determined that they were from rage. His mother would scold him for crying, but the scolding would be worse if he were crying from a silly bloody nose.

 

Kaz wasn’t sure when it happened, but somehow, he found himself at the police station. It all became clear and focused as if the ripples in a pond suddenly stopped. Kaz recognized the flag of the rising sun, and all the other military paraphernalia decorating the walls. Kaz’s eyes finally found the man right in front of him, dabbing a cotton swab against his chin and forehead. 

Kaz jerked away from the man with a shout, kicking a chair out from under himself and landing on his butt on the hard ground. The man had no reaction. Kaz recognized him from the first time that Takenaka took him to the police station; the scary bald man that was sitting inside.

“It can’t have hurt that much, it’s only disinfectant,” the scary bald man muttered. He stood and took a step towards Kaz. Without any effort, he hefted Kaz by his arm and back into the chair that he was in. “Stop squirming. It’ll be over soon, and then you can go home.”

“Home?” Kaz asked.

“Yes, back to where you live. With that Akiko woman,” the officer said.

“You’re not going to arrest me?” Kaz asked.

The man stopped dabbing at Kaz’s wounds. He gave Kaz an unimpressed look and raised an eyebrow at him. “I wouldn’t ever believe in my life that a child missing two limbs could break into a locked house and steal food without being caught. It’s impossible for a cripple.”

Kaz’s anger flared up in his gut. “I’m not a cripple,” he growled. He’d described himself as that many times before, but it stung so much worse when it came out of someone else’s mouth.

“I let you off this time because that woman beat you up so badly that I could have called it assault. If I wanted to, I could have shot her and killed her without letting her leave. She’s the one who got off easy, not you,” the man said.

“Hey, Chief?” another, more familiar voice called. “Who’ve you got out there?”

Kaz’s blood ran cold. From the other room in the police station, Takenaka appeared. He looked less formal than Kaz had ever seen him, and he had a lit cigarette between his teeth.

“Kazuhira? Chie’s son?” Takenaka asked.

Kaz gave a grim, shaky smile. “Yes, sir,” Kaz agreed. “There’s no one else in Japan with blond hair except me.”

“Did you get in a fight?” Takenaka asked. He wandered over, taking in Kaz’s appearance.

“No,” Kaz said.

Takenaka puffed on his cigarette and walked to Kaz. He put his hands on his hips as the chief stood. “Do you need a ride back home, Kazuhira?” he asked.

“I would appreciate that,” Kaz agreed. “I don’t know if I could make it there on my own.”

Takenaka nodded.

There was no more talking between the two of them for the entire ride to Akiko’s home. Kaz would have found it peaceful if it weren’t for the eerily bad mood that Takenaka was spouting. His whole face was hard lines and scowls, and it scared Kaz. He didn’t open his mouth until they got to Akiko’s home. Kaz normally would have hopped out of the car and thanked Takenaka, but something kept him from getting out until Takenaka spoke.

“Did your aunt do that to you?” Takenaka asked. There was a deep growl somewhere in his voice, belying his calm exterior. “I can make her regret it, Kazuhira. You’ve done more than enough, and I owe you for Chie’s cigarettes.”

Kaz shook his head. “Akiko didn’t do anything to me.” He knew that with one word, he could make Akiko regret pushing him out, and threatening to have him killed in a roundabout way. He could easily have Takenaka punish her for the things that she did to him—although now that Kaz thought about it, he wasn’t sure if withholding rice and calling him mean names was enough to warrant a Kempeitai officer beating Akiko—and possibly her children as well—to death.

It was obvious that Takenaka did not believe Kazuhira, but he wouldn’t make him admit that two women had gotten the best of him. “You take care of yourself, Kazuhira.”

Kaz slipped out of the car as gracefully as he could and bowed. “Thank you, Officer Takenaka.”

“And, Kazuhira?” Officer Takenaka continued. Kaz turned to face him one last time. “Take my advice. Get out of that house.”

Kaz bowed again. “Thank you, Officer Takenaka,” he repeated.

With that, Takenaka turned the car around in the wide streets of Akiko’s neighborhood and drove back towards the center of Tokyo. Kaz watched the tail lights of the car until they were too far away for Kaz to see them anymore. 

 

**June 23, 1945.**

 

Kaz barely slept through the whole night. Aside from the fear that Akiko would wake him up at any second and kick him out onto the street again, Kaz couldn’t get Officer Takenaka’s words out of his head for the life of him. He had seemed so serious—which wasn’t uncommon for Officer Takenaka—but it was a different kind of serious that Kaz had never seen him be before. It was the serious look that Chie would use on Kaz.

It was the kind of seriousness she used when she told Kaz that if he cried, she wouldn’t visit him in the hospital.

If anything, that thought sent Kaz into another horrible pit of despair and confusion. If he couldn’t trust his mother, how could he trust Officer Takenaka?

Kaz stirred when Miho woke up. She was the quietest of the children, scurrying about her morning routine barely making more sound than a mouse. Kaz righted himself and went into the sitting room to wait for breakfast. Miho was dressed for school and ready to go when she sat down across from Kaz at the table. Her face was set in hard lines and mean expressions that made her look ten times older than she was.

"Why are you still here?” Miho asked. Her tone was clipped. She wasn’t giving Kaz a reason to fight back, but she was edging closer to it as the clock ticked away the minutes.

Somewhere in the house, Akiko and the younger children began to stir.

“This is where I live,” Kaz said. “There’s nothing more to it.”

Miho curled her nose in an entirely unattractive way. “You’ve outstayed your welcome. My mother turned you out yesterday afternoon; wasn’t that hint enough for you?”

“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” Kaz said. “Would you rather I starved and died on the streets like a rat?” 

“It would be better than you staying here and eating the food that we don’t have to spare.”

“The only reason that you don’t have food to spare is that your family are pigs,” Kaz spat. Watching Miho’s face transition to pure horror felt far better than it should have. “We would have more food, but your bitch of a mother is too ashamed of her nephew because of the way he looks.”

Kaz didn’t know what was easier; saying the words just to hurt Miho, or saying the words without any foresight because he didn’t care what happened to him at that point.

“Honestly? I think it’s because of my missing arm and leg. She thinks a freak like me deserves a harder life than I already have. Obviously, freaks don’t need to eat; we don’t need places to sleep; we don’t need the only things that our mothers left behind for us to keep. But wait, you wouldn’t understand that because you are just as much of a selfish bitch as your mother,” Kaz snarled.

What began as a calm insult became all the emotions he had been bottling up for two months. He could see the tears forming in Miho’s big, dark eyes, but it didn’t make a difference to Kaz.

Saying those awful things to her made him feel better about himself.

“Mother!” Miho screamed. She bolted upright and tore through the house towards her mother.

“What, Miho? What’s wrong?” Akiko pressed. 

“It’s Kazuhira!”

Kaz was already on his foot before Akiko came anywhere near him. He turned to glare at her, and the look froze her in her spot. Miho and the other two hovered behind Akiko, cowering away from the demon in their home. Kaz could swear that he felt the fire from two months ago, lapping at his burned flesh and consuming him whole. His vision was nearly white with rage; it was a cloud so thick that he had to push through it with all his strength to find his words.

“I’m leaving this goddamn house!” he screamed. Kaz’s throat hurt as soon as the words ripped clean out of him. “If you were going to treat me like a fucking disease, you should have told me so!” Kaz wasn’t sure if his mother would be proud of him for forgetting his age and standing up for himself, or if she would be disappointed that he had thrown his manners to the wind. “I hope you all die!”

Kaz didn’t spend half a second longer in that horrible house. He turned as fast as he possibly could, and left the house in a rage. The fire was licking at his heels and tearing up the ground in front of him as he kicked the dirt away in his anger.

So inundated with hatred, Kaz walked until he couldn’t walk anymore.

 

**June 23, 1945. 7:30 p.m.**

 

The rain extinguished Kaz’s fire.

It came on suddenly, with only a few dots of moisture here and there on the dirt under Kaz’s food, but within minutes it became a flood. The rain drenched Kaz in seconds without an umbrella, and he had nowhere to take shelter. He had barely gotten out of Akiko’s neighborhood when it started, and now there wasn’t a single place within sight that could keep him dry.

At first, the rain was calming. The cool droplets on Kaz’s skin felt amazing after baking in the sun all day long as he walked. The rage that had been clinging to every hair and cell on his body was swept away by the rain. Along with it, the last of Kaz’s energy. He’d barely had a wink of sleep all night, and the explosion of emotions earlier wiped out the last of what he could spare.

The cooling calm that washed over Kaz didn’t last for long. All too soon, the rain became harsh. The drops felt like needles against his burning skin, and it made his hair and clothes stick to him uncomfortably. It didn’t take long for the chill to become almost more than he could handle. 

Kaz barely made it up a steep hill that overlooked a river, when shelter finally found him. Tucked away into the hill was an old air raid shelter, unused due to the factor of unsafety came with a buried shelter. If an earthquake were to hit at the same time, there would be no saving the citizens seeking refuge.

Kazuhira ducked inside the rickety wooden frame and the slightly warmer air inside met him. The front part of the shelter was soaking wet mud, so Kaz moved farther back into the little man-made cave.

A deep growling stopped him.

Kaz gripped onto his crutch tighter. His worst fears flashed through his mind. A bear? A wolf? He had no idea how he was supposed to defend himself.

For the second time in his life, Kaz was surprised to see a plain old dog. It crept out of the shadows, with every hair on its skinny body sticking out. Rain soaked the dirt in its fur, and now it was dripping with mud.

Kaz could recognize those pointy hip bones anywhere.

“You shut up!” he demanded. “I gave you fish when you needed it! Ungrateful mutt. I saved your life, and now you want to kick me out. What about you return the favor?”

The dog didn’t stop growling.

“Fine!” Kaz huffed. He stepped backward—and awkward thing to do with one foot and a crutch—until the dog stopped growling. Once it stopped, Kaz flopped down onto the hard-packed dirt. He closed his eyes, barely thinking about just how uncomfortable he was before he fell asleep.

 

**June 24, 1945.**

 

Kaz woke when the first rays of the sun began to poke into the shallow cave. Now that the sun illuminated the cave, he could see that there wasn't much to it. A few straw mats were on the ground and hanging from the walls, and there was a leftover mosquito net draped over the back half of the cave. A hole was ripped clean through the net, making it completely useless.

Without getting up, Kaz scanned the cave for the dog. It was nowhere to be seen. Kaz sat up and then got up onto his crutch. He entered the outside world, glad to see that most of the rain dried up overnight.

Now that Kaz had a chance to look around; he took in his surroundings. The old shelter was tucked away into a hill that would keep the river from overflowing up and into the town. Nearby, Kaz could smell the salty breeze from the ocean. A few frogs hopped along the bank of the river, and Kaz could see the silver gleaming of fish just under the surface of the water. The grass was tall and itchy but provided the perfect camouflage for a certain skinny dog. Kaz spotted the dog a few yards away from the shelter, lounging under the shade of a small tree.

The dog had seen Kaz, too, but it stayed where it was.

“What do you eat around here”" Kaz asked the dog. His stomach was growling in a painful way, reminding Kaz of just how little he’d eaten in the past day. He glanced between the dog and the river as if hoping for the dog to hop up and speak.

The dog, as if realizing its hunger, stood up on its wobbly legs. It walked to the riverside and began lapping at the cool, clear water. Kaz, staying closer to the shelter and giving the dog enough room, approached the water as well. It was freezing when he dipped his hand into it, setting his crutch close by, and even chillier when he brought the water to his mouth. Kaz didn't know how safe river water was, but the dog seemed healthy enough aside from its weight.

Sitting at the edge of the river and pondering his hunger, Kaz remembered the money his mother stored.

Six thousand yen.

Sitting in Akiko’s storage closet, just waiting to be found.

Kaz groaned and flopped onto his back. The dog perked its pointy ears.

“I’m such an idiot!” Kaz lamented. “I was so mad that I forgot the damn money.”

Kaz rolled over onto his side and looked at the dog. It seemed far less malicious than the night before when Kaz was afraid he would wake up to jaws around his throat. He didn't know much about dogs, but it looked just as hungry as he did.

“What if I got us some food?” Kaz asked, despite knowing that a dog couldn't understand him.

The dog tilted its head to the side.

Kaz got up once more, each movement painful when he had so little energy in his body. The dog, startled by his sudden movement, ran away and into the shelter. Kaz knew that he looked a little crazy, covered in mud and dirt, but he decided to give it his best shot. Now more than ever, he needed the help of someone else.

Kaz scaled the hill out of the river and took in his surroundings with an air of mixed awe and dread. Kaz didn't know how far he walked the day before, but he recognized the razed neighborhood that he was in. In the distance following the path on top of the hill, he could see the elementary school. Below him, houses that citizens were rebuilding stretched on for miles. His house was still a pile of ash and caked dirt. Kaz wished he had left some of the food in the pot, instead of taking it all to Akiko as she demanded. To the right, there were fields and fields of reconstructed farms. Kaz could see tomato plants and fields of rice. Nestled within the crops, was a little house with a very familiar truck. Set on his destination, Kaz took off towards the little house.

 

A few people on Kaz's walk gave him strange looks, but he moved with enough determination that he could convince himself that they weren't staring at him at all. It didn't take long to reach the old man's house within the fields, but he was sweating like a pig by the time he got there. The old man, who gave Kaz a ride from the hospital, was sitting on the back of his truck with a bat to his right, fanning himself with his left hand.

“Have you had many thieves?” Kaz asked, gesturing at the bat perched on the ground.

The old man, only just realizing that Kazuhira was there, lit up with a friendly smile. “I’d only hope that you aren’t one of them,” he said, “you seem like a nice boy.”

“My mother taught me better than to steal,” Kaz agreed. A guilty part of his thoughts reminded him that she apparently didn’t teach him not to insult his hosts and call them awful names.

“Say, weren’t you living a few hours out of Tokyo with your aunt?”

“Yes, sir,” Kaz agreed. “But she kicked me out, so...” Kaz trailed off. Akiko had kicked him out, in a way. The rest he had done by himself. “Now I’m living with some family friends that are in the area.”

The old man nodded. “And what can I do for you?” he asked, finally getting to the point.

“Well,” Kaz said, toeing at the dirt. “I left some things at Akiko’s home. I was hoping that you would be kind enough to take me there, and then take me into Tokyo. I want to show my appreciation, so I would like to buy some food for the family that is hosting me. I think they could use it right now,” Kaz said. All he could hope for was that his lie was believable.

“That’s very thoughtful of you,” the old man mused. “I’ll take you to Tokyo; I was planning on doing that anyways. But you can’t buy much food, right now, young man.”

“I know that,” Kaz said. “But I want to help them in any way that I can. It’s the least I can do to repay them for taking me in.”

The old man nodded. “Hop in the truck, and I’ll get you where you need to go.”

 

The whole trip, including sneaking into Akiko’s house while the old man was visiting some friends he knew in that part of the city, took about six hours. By the time they returned to the old man’s farm, the sun was high above them and beating down on their backs. Kaz still had most of his yen, knowing that he shouldn’t buy things he couldn't store properly.

All in all, Kaz considered it a good haul. He was able to find a mostly-intact pot to cook rice, an old stand to go over a campfire, a new mosquito net, and a futon. Kaz got his ration of rice, and the rest he bought. Stuffed into the cooking pot were old turnips and beets, mandarins, peaches, and whatever else he could find. Kaz would have killed for some fish, but he could manage with what he had.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to take you to their door?” the old man asked as Kaz hopped out of the truck.

“This is just fine,” Kaz said. He’d gotten the man to bring him to the hill where Kaz was taking shelter with the dog. “Thank you very much for your kindness,” Kaz said with a deep bow.

“Sure thing, kid. Oh, and, uh—let me know if you see a stray dog wandering around. I think there’s one running amok and making a mess of my crops.”

Kaz’s thoughts flashed to the stray dog that he was now living with. “I will, sir,” he said.

The old man waited in his truck until Kaz managed to get everything out of the back of the truck. He had to resort to carrying things between his teeth and gripped between his fingers and the wood of the crutch. It proved to be much harder than Kaz would ever think it to be.

When the old man drove away, and Kaz could no longer see him, he began to bring the things he purchased down the hill, and into the shelter. The dog, having taken shelter from the heat of the afternoon sun, was tucked away in the shade. At first, it growled every time that Kaz entered the shelter, but it grew used to him appearing and leaving. Once Kaz had everything into the cave, he rolled out the futon and set up the mosquito net in the low ceiling. It would have been easier with two hands, but Kaz made the situation work as best as he could manage.

When that was all done, Kaz sat down on the futon and grabbed one of the peaches he bought. He could save the rice for later that night when he wasn’t so exhausted from a long day. Kaz took his first bite of food in over twenty-four hours and groaned at the delicious taste. He’d bought ones that were a little unripe to spare the cost of ripe peaches, but they were just as delicious.

Kaz glanced up from his peach, and nearly jumped out of his skin to see the dog’s nose an inch away from his hand.

“Hey!” Kaz snapped, holding the peach high above the dog’s greedy mouth. “This is mine! Did you pay for this? I don’t think so!”

The dog whined miserably. It was a nice change from the usual growling.

Kaz gave the dog a harsh look but eventually gave in. If he was going to share the dog’s home, he might as well feed it. Kaz wanted to be friendly to the dog, and he definitely wanted the dog to stop growling at him. Taking a chance and hoping that the dog wouldn’t bite his fingers off, Kaz offered the peach to the dog.

The dog, still not sure if it trusted Kaz or not, snatched the peach from his hand and ran to the back of the cave. It growled as it chewed on the peach, its dark, almond eyes never leaving Kaz’s blue ones. Kaz was the first to look away, turning instead to grab another peach for himself. He got halfway through the peach when the dog came snuffling back, its head lowered.

“What? Still hungry?” Kaz asked through a mouthful of peach. All by himself, he’d forgotten his manners. He doubted a dog would mind if he talked with his mouth full. “Here, take one of these,” Kaz said. He set down the peach next to himself, and instead grabbed a turnip for the dog. “They’re good,” he said.

The dog sniffed at the turnip and then grabbed that from Kaz. It was less suspicious and retreated only halfway across the cave. Kaz finished off his peach and then began peeling back the skin of a mandarin. The dog’s ears flicked up in curiosity. Without having to be asked, Kaz tore the orange in half and tossed one-half to the dog. It was snapped up just as quickly as everything else.

Kaz was starting on his part of the orange when the dog came back to nose through the food Kaz brought with him. It snuffled around before settling on another turnip. This time, the dog lied down at Kaz’s foot at the end of the futon.

“Do you like turnips that much, or are you just that hungry?” Kaz asked.

The dog made a whining sound as it bit off chunks of the turnip greedily.

Kaz allowed himself a little smile. “I’ll make sure to buy more vegetables the next time I go into town,” he said. Kaz finished his orange and then reached for a turnip of his own. They weren’t his favorite when they were plain, but his stomach was rumbling loud enough that he didn’t care. “That old man says there’s a dog tearing up his farms. Is that you?”

The dog finished its turnip and sat up, licking its chops. The dog stared as Kaz ate his turnip. Unable to resist the begging—with a little whine here and there thrown in—Kaz bit off a huge chunk of turnip and spat it out for the dog. The dog inhaled the turnip without hardly chewing it.

“You shouldn’t steal vegetables,” Kaz scolded. “I have more than enough money to live on forever. I’ll buy vegetables for you,” he said.

The dog barked. It was an odd bark that almost sounded too low for a dog of its size. Not incredibly large, but large enough that it would be scary if it were mad.

“Do you have a name?” Kaz asked. The dog sniffed at the air. “What about Aina? Since you love vegetables so much?” This time, the dog stretched out on its belly and pawed itself closer to Kaz. “Aina? Is that a good name? Here, Aina,” Kaz said, taking another huge bite and spitting it out for Aina.

Aina gobbled it up just like everything else. Aina crept closer and then rolled onto her belly. Kaz was amazed by the sudden show of trust and set down his turnip. He was just about to reach out and rub her skinny belly when Aina hopped to her feet in a flash. Kaz’s hand, far too close for her liking, got a swift bite. Kaz cried out and snatched his hand away from her, before noticing that Aina took the last of the turnip and ran out of the shelter with it.

“Aina!” Kaz called. “That was mine!” He frowned at the grass that was rustling in Aina’s wake but settled himself to his fate. If she was going to be stubborn and mean, then so be it.

 

That night, after some finagling and smart thinking on Kaz’s part, he managed to get a small fire going. He set the frame for the pot over the fire and then set the pot full of water and rice over that. He was cooking a decent amount of rice, in case Aina decided to show up again. He hadn’t seen the scrawny dog since earlier that day, but it seemed like the easiest way to her heart was with food. Kaz didn’t mind sharing with a dog if she stopped biting him. He had the scars from the first encounter with her, and now some tender scabs from earlier in the afternoon.

Other than his biting roommate, Kaz didn’t mind his new living accommodations. The sound of the river was soothing, and the smell of the ocean made him feel like he was at home. Despite knowing that his mother died somewhere around this area, it did not bother Kaz. He felt more at ease here than he ever did with Akiko.

Kaz peeled the lid off the pot when he was sure the rice was done and basked in the sweet-smelling steam that wafted past his face. He breathed in deeply, taking in the smell of rice. Kaz hadn’t had rice in a week, and now he was sure that he could eat his whole month of rations by himself.

A rustling in the grass startled Kaz, but not for long. He took the pot away from the fire, carefully avoiding spilling all the rice, and set it down on the ground. A fire wasn’t necessary to keep him warm, but he liked the light that it cast.

His suspicions proving true, Aina pushed through the tall grass. She was crawling on her belly and carrying something in her mouth.

Kaz, waiting for the rice to cool down, turned to face Aina. She looked guilty all over, knowing that she’d bit the hand that fed her.

“You came back,” Kaz commented as nonchalant as he could. “I guess you want some rice, too,” he teased. Aina whined at him. Kaz couldn’t help but let himself smile. “Fine, come here.”

The rice was still scalding, but Kaz scooped out a handful of it and tossed it toward Aina. Aina sniffed at the offered food but waited patiently. She opened her mouth and dropped something wet and furry into the dirt. Kaz furrowed his eyebrows and leaned forward. He curled his nose at the sight.

“Thanks, Aina, but I don’t eat mice,” Kaz said.

Kaz glanced over at the fire, his stomach rumbling away. Aina was already licking up her rice. Kaz looked to the mice and then to the fire once more.

Surely it couldn’t be that bad?

 

**August 1, 1945.**

 

Aina splashed about in the river a few feet away from Kaz, snapping at the silver minnows that darted between her paws. She was making a ruckus with her strangely deep bark, and with all the splashing as she chased fish to no avail.

Too timid to submerge himself past his waist or wade into the deeper water, Kaz sat with his back to the edge of the river bank. After weeks without a proper bath, he figured that the river could do just as well. For Aina, it certainly seemed to be working. When Kaz first met her, he was certain that she was made entirely of mud. Now that she was playing in the river, Kaz stared in awe as the mud pooled away from her in huge rivulets that were taken by the current. Slowly but surely, she became less brown and more of a golden, coppery color.

Aina shook herself fiercely and then splashed her way over to Kaz. She barked at him as she approached, and Kaz held out his hand to oblige her. Aina nuzzled the top of her head against Kaz’s palm and then moved to lick his fingers and wrist.

“You’re gross,” Kaz said with a smile. He splashed some water at Aina, who tried to snap the droplets from the air.

Aina finally settled down, stretching out on her belly next to Kaz. She was tall enough that even stretched out, her head was still above the water. That didn’t stop her from dipping her nose into the water and blowing bubbles, though.

Kaz relaxed against her, softly petting his hand through her fur. With each touch, more mud washed away downstream. Kaz didn’t mind the dirt half as much as he should have. After all, he was just as filthy as she was. All it took was a hot summer day for him to realize just how gross he felt when he was sweating so much.

“You’ve gotten fat,” Kaz commented. Aina had certainly doubled her weight since Kaz began feeding her shares of his food. “Maybe I should put you on a diet; no more turnips for you.”

Aina looked up from blowing bubbles, water dripping down her snout. She woofed at Kaz, who smiled back at her and ruffled the fur behind her ears.

“I would never take away your turnips. I know you love them.”

Kaz leaned back on the bank, staring up at the sky and relaxing in the cool water. In the short time he’d lived in the old air raid shelter with Aina, Kaz had managed to make it livable. There were two futons now; one for Aina who was determined to sleep near Kaz always. He had more cooking utensils, and even a set of chopsticks so that he didn’t have to eat with his hands anymore.

Aina was just as helpful. She caught whatever she could, from mice to frogs to rabbits and occasionally fish, and she brought her share to the table. She preferred to eat her meat raw, but Kaz wasn’t sure he cold stoop to that level just yet. To avoid thinking about what he was eating, he cooked the animals until they were nearly black so that he couldn’t see their little bodies.

It was no stand-in for his mother’s cooking, but it would have to do until he got a house of his own.

“I have to go back to the city soon, and get our new ration of rice,” Kaz hummed. “Because now I’ve got a certain fat dog who eats half of the rice that’s supposed to be mine.”

Aina, as if understanding that Kaz was teasing her, put a foot on Kaz’s leg and pawed at him. She gave Kaz that look he was so familiar with—one that she pulled when she was trying to be cute. Kaz rolled his eyes and gently shoved her shoulder. Aina turned her head to bite at him, but it was a friendly bite that would never make it past the skin.

“I’ll go soon,” Kaz decided. “Maybe in a week or two. Does that sound good, Aina?”

 

**August 14, 1945.**

 

Kaz was standing in line to get his rice ration for the month when he noticed the two men behind him talking. One was fanning himself slowly with his hat, while the other was sweating like a pig in the August heat. At first, Kaz hadn’t been paying any attention to them at all.

And then.

“Did you hear about what happened?”

“You mean on the radio?”

“Yeah! The Emperor himself was on the radio. I’ve never heard his voice before.”

Kaz turned to look at them while the man in charge of rations doled out Kaz’s rice for the month. “Why was The Emperor on the radio?” he asked. Without one, Kaz found it much harder to keep up to date with current events.

“You haven’t heard?” the man fanning himself asked. “It’s the biggest news in Japan right now—we’ve surrendered.”

Kaz’s world seemed to fall out from under him in an instant. “Surrendered?!” he gawked, staring at the two men with wide eyes. “What do you mean we surrendered?”

“I can’t believe you haven’t heard,” the other man mused. He was looking over Kaz suspiciously, only now noticing his appearance. He stroked his chin slowly. “Yeah, we surrendered. Unconditionally surrendered to the American army.”

“Why did Japan surrender?” Kaz asked.

“Get your rice and get a move on,” the man behind the counter snapped. “I don’t need kids like you wandering around this place. You’ll drive people away, looking like that.”

Kaz ignored the man’s mean comment and grabbed his bag of rice. He stepped out of the way so that the two men could get their rations for the month. The line kept moving, and Kaz became more aware of the dirty stares that he was getting. Normally, they didn’t bother him, but now they seemed more malicious than before. “Why did we surrender?” he asked again. Kaz was doing his best to remain polite; if he was overly rude, there was a chance that he wouldn’t be allowed to return to get his rations the next month.

“Probably because of American spies like you,” the man fanning himself said. He said it casually, but the words felt like a stab straight through Kaz’s heart.

“I’m not an American,” Kaz hissed. He clenched the bag of rice tighter between his fingers and the wooden bar of his crutch.

“Did you know that the Americans bombed two of our cities?” the man with the hat asked. “They weren’t like the Tokyo bombs; these flattened the cities and killed hundreds of thousands of people. It was far worse than the fire bombs here. All because of spies like you. How have you made it this far in life without someone killing you?” he sneered.

Kaz’s anger, passively bubbling under his skin, suddenly erupted outwards. “I’m not American!” Kaz snapped. “I’m German, and I’m Japanese, none of this was my fault!”

The man scowled at Kaz. “The Germans were no better than the Americans. They abandoned us halfway through the war.”

Kaz's heart felt like it was crushed in his chest. “Why would they do that?” he asked. “Wasn’t their army superior to the Americans?” 

“They surrendered in May,” the sweating man said. “You’d better move out of the way, kid. It’s a dangerous game you’re playing here. No one wants to hear another word from a rat like you.”

“Get out of this place, or you’ll never eat rice again,” the government official threatened.

Kaz nearly dropped his rice. In May? Kaz’s whole world was spinning uncontrollably, like the time when he first heard his mother was dead. Was his father dead, too? Would Kaz never be able to meet the man and tell him about Chie?

“Thank you for your kindness,” Kaz whispered, though it would be a lie to say that his tone wasn’t overflowing with malice. He bowed shallowly to the three men.

Kaz, bag of rice gripped securely between his fingers and using the heel of his palm to hold onto his crutch, shambled out of the rations building. His mind was a mess, trying to put together all the information that was overloading his young brain all too quickly. First, the Americans ripped his mother away from him, and now his father was ripped away just as cruelly. All Kaz had left in the world was himself and a greedy dog that ate too much of his food.

“Fuck!” Kaz yelled. He was frustrated, but he couldn’t exactly pinpoint what he was frustrated at. Aina was his first target to direct his anger onto, but he knew that it wasn’t fair. Aina didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of his misplaced anger.

Blind with rage, Kaz turned down a path between two houses. He stopped in the middle of the alley, seething to himself. His breath was ragged, and becoming harder to control with each inhale. He wanted so desperately to be mad at something, at someone, but he couldn’t find a suitable outlet for his emotions.

“Hey, kid!”

Kaz’s head whipped up. He nearly let go of his rice in his anger. All that kept him holding onto it was the rumbling in his stomach. He and Aina had been living off a large rabbit that she caught and a few small birds here and there. Kaz couldn’t often make it into Tokyo, and when he did it took an incredibly long time. If he didn’t get this rice back to their home, he didn’t know what they would do for food.

The anger rushed out of Kaz in an instant. The two men from before were standing at the end of the small alleyway, penning Kaz in. They looked to be just as angry as he was.

“You sure are a rude piece of shit, aren’t you?” Kaz wasn’t sure which one asked the question. “You didn’t show an ounce of remorse for your country, and you were obnoxious and ungrateful, to boot.”

“I’m sorry,” Kaz whispered. “I didn’t mean- “

“You didn’t mean what?” the other man interrupted. He began walking forward, and his companion followed close behind. “You didn’t mean to yell? To waste our time with your filth?”

“I was confused,” Kaz muttered. He was trying to make himself as small as he possibly could, but it wasn’t helping his situation the slightest bit. 

“Yeah?” the first man sneered. “You’re gonna be real confused in just a few seconds.”

 

**August 15, 1945.**

 

Kaz woke up in a puddle of mud. It was black and stuck to his body all over. Each muscle in Kaz’s body was sore, but he couldn’t remember what happened to him. Kaz struggled to sit up on his arm, being as tender as he could. His bones felt like they had been turned into tissue paper, and each fiber in his body was screaming in protest.

It took Kaz until he was sitting up to realize that droplets of rain were pelting him over and over in sheets of warm rain. He was soaked through, but his clothes were stained a nasty mix of brown and black.

Gingerly, Kaz turned himself over to take stock of his body. His arm and everything else on his body were covered in nasty bruises that were already turning yellow and red. Kaz could barely see out of one of his eyes, and with no other hand to poke at it, he assumed that it was swollen shut. 

To his left, his bag of rice was torn in two, and the grains were strewn everywhere throughout the mud. Kaz’s thoughts flared with doubt. Would Aina leave him, since he had left her? Kaz didn’t know what day it was, or for how long he had been lying in the rain.

To Kaz’s right, the broken remains of his crutch. The sight of it made his chest shudder and his breath come in choppier than he would have preferred, but Kaz refused to let himself cry. If he cried now, then he would be letting those two men win. Kaz would not let bullies get the best of him. Japan had surrendered, his mother was dead, and he lived with a dog in an old air raid shelter. Kaz could get through anything if he just willed himself to get through it.

Kaz got onto his hand and his knee awkwardly and painfully, and began to crawl through the mud. Thankfully, it was shallow mud because of how hard-packed the dirt was, but it made a mess under his fingernails and his toes. Towards the end of the alley was a pile of broken-down crates. Kaz, struggling to maintain an ounce of his balance, shuffled over to the crates and searched through until he found a thin plank that was just long enough to use as a cane.

Each muscle screaming at him to lie back down in the mud and die, Kaz forced himself up and onto his foot. The makeshift cane was awkward, and he could tell that it was going to leave splinters in his palm, but he didn’t care.

Beaten to Hell and back, Kaz limped out of the alleyway and towards the river that was glistening in the distance. Very quickly, an hour walk became a two-hour walk. Kaz was far less coordinated using just a plank, and it had no sturdy ground beneath it to help hold him up. By the time Kaz was halfway there, mud had soaked him through and through. Kaz thought back to the time that he first saw Aina, and how dirty she was. Now he was just the same.

After two grueling hours, Kaz finally made it to the river. He fell on his face three times going up the hill, but only slipped once going down the hill. The slick grass and mud brought him to the base of the hill, and he crawled the rest of the way to the air raid shelter.

Aina was there in an instant, barking at Kaz and running around him happily. She was wagging her tail and sniffing Kaz over from top to bottom. She had grown very used to Kaz bringing food with him after he left for a long time. Kaz pushed past Aina and lied down on their futons, figuring he could clean them some other day.

Aina, unwilling to give up, nuzzled at Kaz. She put a damper on her excitement, now that she had had a chance to take in Kaz and see that he was wounded. Kaz gently pushed her nose away from his face.

“Not now, Aina,” he croaked. Kaz let his hand slip away from her face and fall to the ground. The air in the shelter was muggy and warm and exceedingly uncomfortable. “I’m not in the mood to play.”

Aina snorted at Kaz and pawed at the ground. She lowered her head, and gently licked at Kaz’s face. The touch was soothing, but her tongue stung each time she lapped over an open wound.

“I said no,” Kaz grumbled with a smidge more ferocity in his voice.

He reached up to push her away again, but Aina refused to let it happen. She curled her lip and chomped down on Kaz’s hand, but the bite was far lighter and nowhere near as threatening as Kaz knew she could be. She held onto his hand between her teeth for a long time before she finally let go. When Aina lied down next to Kaz, curling up to him like a live heater, and continued to lick his face until he was somewhat clean, Kaz didn’t push her away.

The rhythm of her slobbery licks against his face and arm was soothing, and the traces of anger that Kaz was holding onto rushed out of his body. The first of the sniffles began, and Aina moved her head to lick at Kaz’s face once more. He wasn’t sure if the slobber all over him was nice, or disgusting.

“I’m sorry, Aina,” Kaz breathed. He raised his hand ever so slightly and curled his fingers into the thick, plush fur on her chest. “I left you alone for so long, and I didn’t even bring any food back.”

As if the words opened a dam in Kaz’s head, tears burst from his eyes. He wrapped his arm around Aina’s shoulders, and she inched closer to allow herself to be held by Kaz. He cried into her fur, wailing like a child—which he often forgot that he was—until his eyes were too heavy to keep open and his brain too exhausted to keep functioning.

Kaz fell asleep, using Aina as a pillow. The dog adjusted herself just slightly and rested her chin in the crook between Kaz’s jaw and his shoulder. 

 

**August 20, 1945.**

 

After lying in the rain for hours after being beaten up, Kaz found himself with the worst flu he had ever experienced. Aina did her best, keeping him warm at all times of the day and going so far as to be his support when Kaz crawled out of the cave to vomit or relieve himself. Kaz, if he had the mental capacity, would have been amazed at how motherly she had become. Aina refused to leave his side for long, only venturing out to bring back rabbits and mice. She always tried to feed Kaz first, but just the sight of food made his stomach churn.

The sun made Kaz feel better, and he stretched out with Aina just outside of the shelter for hours on end. Aina kept her head up, always watching over this new charge she’d been saddled with. When other animals or people came anywhere close to the shelter, Aina was the first to act. She bristled up and ran at the intruders with her most threatening bark. Ten out of ten times, the intruders would run away screaming.

At some point, Kaz stopped feeling hungry entirely. He could hear Aina’s stomach rumbling on occasion, but he was past the point of hunger. Kaz could faintly recognize a twinge in his stomach that was _probably_ hunger, but he was too weak to do anything about it. He still felt bad about losing the rice. If he had kept his cool, he wouldn’t have gotten cornered and beaten up by two men that he’d managed to make angry in just a few minutes of interaction.

As the days passed, Aina grew more restless. Kaz was strong enough to sit up against the cave wall by himself for the first time in a week. His bruises had mostly healed, but his body felt numb from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. He saw her pacing back and forth more often than usual. She went up to him, nuzzled his hand, and then went outside of the shelter to patrol for a few minutes. When she came back, she was still incredibly antsy.

Kaz hadn’t had a bite to eat in a week, and Aina had been living off scrawny mice. She rarely had enough time to chase down a squirrel or dig up a rabbit when she had Kaz to care for, too.

The pacing made Kaz just as nervous as Aina, but he didn’t have the energy to get up and console her.

When the sun was just beginning to set, and Kaz was stretching out on the futon to sleep for the night, Aina sat at the mouth of the shelter. She glanced between the open air and Kaz behind her, whining low in her throat.

Kaz stared at Aina from the futon, taking in every detail of how wired she looked. He felt bad for her, having to take care of a sick human when she could barely take care of herself.

“You can leave,” Kaz whispered.

Aina’s ears perked up. She turned her head to Kaz and tilted it to the right.

“I know it must be hard for you,” he continued. Kaz curled his fingers into a loose fist. “I’m useless right now. I lost our food for the month. I can’t go buy turnips.”

Aina sat at attention when she heard the word turnips. She’d grown to associate it with her favorite snack. Aina trotted over to Kaz, nosing him over to try and sniff out the turnips he might have been hiding from her.

“You should just go,” Kaz muttered, bitterness creeping into his voice. Aina nibbled at his fingers, trying to find the food. “I said go!” Kaz repeated, raising his voice as much as he could.

Kaz shoved Aina away as hard as he could, and she went stumbling backward with a yelp. A switch inside of her turned on, Aina growled at Kaz, and each of her hairs stood on end. She was staring him down, and Kaz refused to look away from the challenge.

“Get out!” Kaz screamed.

Aina still agitated, looked between Kaz and the river just outside. She took a hesitant step towards Kaz, although she was still growling warily. Kaz palmed at the ground, searching for anything. He wrapped his fingers around a rock and gave it his best throw.

When the rock connected, Aina yelped and scrambled out of the cave. She gave Kaz a wistful look over her shoulder and then ran along the river and away from him.

Kaz let his arm drop back to the ground. He sat for a few minutes in total silence aside from the gentle sounds from the river. It took longer than he would have expected for his brain to realize just what he’d done. Guilt flooding him, Kaz turned onto his other side. He stared at his fingers incredulously.

“I just… did that,” he mused. No one was around to hear him. Aina didn’t shift from her position to check on him and see if he needed help getting around.

Kaz’s stomach churned, in a mix of sickening guilt and hunger and his body protesting itself. His limbs felt like they weighed tons, dragging him down and pinning him against the dirty futon.

A little part of his brain wanted to tell himself that it wasn’t his fault. He had done what he needed to do to keep Aina alive. She was too faithful for her own good, even to a boy that she hadn’t known for that long. If Kaz had let her stay, she would have starved right alongside him. No matter what, Kaz couldn’t drag another soul into the pits of death with him.

The other part of Kaz’s brain was stuck on a loop.

_I hate myself._

 

Despite being exhausted, Kaz had no energy to sleep, either. He rolled from side to side; he put Aina’s futon over himself to try and bite back the chill; he tossed Aina’s futon away when it smelled too much like a dog and made him swelter with guilt. The cicadas and crickets were loud even into the middle of the night, and the frogs were just as noisy. He was used to Aina scuffling in the dirt, trying to get comfortable or dreaming. He liked to be able to reach over and pet her when she was particularly fussy.

In only a few hours, he found himself thinking about and missing a dog more than he thought about his dead parents. The awful things Kaz had done in the past few months consumed his thoughts. A stubborn dog bit him more times than he could count. He yelled at his aunt and cousins, and now he hadn’t the slightest clue what happened to them. He found shelter in an old dug-out for air raids, and he was living with a dog.

Correction: he lived with a dog.

When Kaz heard shuffling in the grass that was not the wind, a huge part of him hoped that it was some murderer come to kill a child in the middle of the night. Kaz didn’t care, at this point he probably deserved to be murdered. Whatever it was, it was dragging something behind it that sounded heavy and thick.

Rather than curling in on himself for protection, Kaz stretched out. He hadn’t started a fire; he wouldn’t know the face of his attacker.

Just when Kaz was ready to shout and ask who was there, a wet nose pressed to his cheek. Kaz jumped back, startled by the touch. A bark met him in response. A very familiar, too-deep bark.

“Aina?” Kaz asked. His voice was tight in his throat from the tears that he refused to shed through the whole night. The dog barked again.

She stuck close to Kaz as he crawled around, assembling a tiny fire in the cave. It lit up the entire area rather nicely. Aina licked Kaz’s face clean of any tears that he might have had, and wagged her tail at him. Somehow, she’d become covered in dirt again. She was dirty from her legs to her chest, and dirt covered her whole underbelly.

“What did you do?” Kaz wondered aloud. He patted her dirty fur and watched the dust go flying all around.

Aina barked and retreated, only to come back with huge bushels of plants. Kaz furrowed his eyebrows at the stalks and took them from Aina, who barked happily again. His brain nearly dead, Kaz stared at the tomatoes and ears of corn and groups of green beans before it all clicked in his head.

Kaz plucked one of the tomatoes and sank his teeth into it greedily. He ate half and then threw the last of it to Aina. She gobbled it up in no time, already waiting for the next tomato. Kaz knew that Aina stole the food; there was only one place that Aina could have gotten a haul like this. Kaz silently apologized the old man but thanked him for his farm.

After the two of them had had their fill, Kaz stretched out on his back. Aina was close by, using Kaz’s chest as a pillow for her chin. She was asleep and snoring softly in no time. Kaz delicately ran his fingers through Aina’s fur on the top of her head, not wanting to wake her up.

When he was better, he would go into town and get them more food. It was the only thing he could do to make up for time lost. He didn’t want Aina to have to steal anymore. If an old man with a grudge killed her, Kaz didn’t know what he would do without her.

“No more stealing, okay?” Kaz whispered. Aina’s ears flickered in her sleep, but she didn’t stir. “I’m going to take care of us; you’ll see.”

 

**Winter, 1946.**

 

Kaz was amazed at how quickly his mother’s money disappeared. In just a few months, he went from living on top of the world to barely being able to buy the food that he and Aina needed to survive. Kaz bought turnips and potatoes when he could, but they were becoming harder and harder to come by. The most that they had at any one time was two turnips and their ration of rice for the month. Kaz had thought about asking the old farmer to spare him some food, but he knew that the shortage was tough on everyone.

It didn’t help that Kaz tried his best not to be seen by the Americans.

Since the beginning of September, American soldiers had been running amok. They hurt people, took their things, and were overall incredibly dangerous. Kaz was suspicious of others to start, but the Americans topped his list of getting-away-from. He would rather stay with Akiko before he was cornered and mocked by an American solider looking to be a jerk.

Kaz hated being able to hear them walking around his and Aina’s home. Aina would growl and snarl, but she never ran up to confront the soldiers. It seemed as though she understood Kaz’s hesitation and fear of them, and she followed suit.

After such a hot summer, Kaz had been hoping for a warm winter, as well. Fate did not have that in store for him. There was a light sprinkling of snow, and his pale skin was painted almost totally red. Once or twice, Kaz was afraid that his fingers were going to fall off before he could get a fire started. He now used Aina’s futon as a second, thicker blanket, and she slept in the same futon as him. The living heater that she was, she managed to keep Kaz asleep through most nights. He’d only woken up once or twice shivering so badly that his teeth chattered together.

The snow was thicker that night; not quite a blizzard but nowhere near the gentle drifts that Tokyo had grown used to over the past few months. Kaz no longer had an idea of what the date was. All he could do was think about how long their food needed to last. The two of them ate less and less rice each day, in the efforts of saving the rations that were growing slimmer and slimmer.

Kaz had taken up the tactics of other children. He had no idea how many orphans there were in Tokyo until he saw them gathering in densely populated areas of Tokyo. The rest of the city was beginning to recover, but the children had been left behind. The American soldiers were forbidden from eating any Japanese food, but the Japanese were even less likely to share what morsels they had.

Sometimes, Kaz found himself wishing that he had shut down his pride and stayed with Akiko in her house.

Sometimes, when a stranger stooped down, holding out a rice ball in his hand toward Kaz, he knew that he never wanted to go back.

Kaz took longer than he expected to realize that the hand and the rice ball in front of him were real. As his hunger took over his body, Kaz’s brain made simple observations feel like wading through thick, swampy mud. This rice ball in front of him was an offering that someone with heavy black gloves was making to him.

Kaz let his eyes wander upward. The man’s arms and legs were thick with muscles, and he was dressed in the olive drab that all the Americans wore. He had a couple of other soldiers behind him, waiting with crossed arms for Kaz to do something. Kaz wanted to smack the rice out of the soldier’s hand in defiance, but then he saw the man’s face.

Kaz was used to pity or disgust, but his expression was neither. The soldier looked determined. It was scribbled all over the hard lines of his face, to the point that Kaz was certain the man was determined _for_ Kaz.

“Take it,” the soldier said. He inclined his hand toward Kaz. “It’s food.”

Kaz didn’t know what the man was saying, but he recognized the English language through his growly voice. Kaz’s gaze darted between the rice and the man’s single eye. An eyepatch covered his other eye; Kaz briefly wondered what had happened to him during the war. 

“Aren’t you hungry?” he asked.

“Give it up; he’s probably close to dead,” one of the other soldiers said. “You know what will happen if we get caught with Japanese food.”

“I’m not eating it,” the man closer to Kaz replied. “Here,” he insisted.

The man went so far as to grab Kaz’s arm with his other hand. Kaz, panicked like a rabbit being chased by a hungry wolf, squirmed and flailed in the man’s grasp.

“Stop it!” Kaz yelled. He was rearing back to launch himself at the soldier, despite knowing that it wouldn’t do any good.

The man stopped, but only after Kaz’s fingers magically closed around the rice ball. Kaz’s heart was hammering in his chest, as wild and terrified as a small bird. He stared up at the soldier, who had the faintest hint of a smile on his lips.

“See? It’s food,” he said.

Kaz was breathing harder than he had in a long time. His body was weary after just a couple seconds of struggling against the soldier. He couldn’t tell if the man had plans to hurt him. Manners long thrown out of the window, Kaz ate the rice ball so fast that he nearly choked on the rice. The man, and his soldier companions, laughed at the scene.

Kaz, once finished with his rice ball, stuck out his hand.

“Give me another one,” he demanded. If this man was so kind to hand out food so willy-nilly, Kaz could only assume that he had another.

That seemed to take the man aback. There was a brief flash of something akin to proud in his single, blue eye. “I don’t have any more to give you,” he said.

“You asked for it, Boss,” another soldier called. He was snickering.

Kaz shook his hand at the soldier. “I need another one. I have a dog, and she needs food. Give me more.” He didn’t know if this soldier knew an ounce of Japanese, but he hoped that his insistence could cross the language barrier. “More,” Kaz repeated.

“Look—I don’t…” the man trailed off with a sigh. He ran a hand through his shaggy hair. From a deep pocket on the side of his pants, he pulled out something wrapped in a crinkly plastic. He handed a few of the packages over to Kaz, who snatched them away like a greedy child.

“Thank you,” Kaz said. He tucked the plastic-wrapped food into his shirt and then stood up on his cane. Sometime between August and December, he moved from the plank pulled from the box in the alley to a sturdy branch from a tree near his home with Aina. Kaz bowed to the soldier and walked in the other direction as quickly as he could.

The plastic was loud between Kaz’s body and the fabric of his shirt, but his only goal was to get home to Aina safely.

 

**Spring, 1948.**

 

Kaz watched the seasons change from his home with Aina. His money was long gone, and the Japanese government was no longer giving rations. The economy was back in a state of repair, and almost everyone was faring ten times better than they had during the war. The American soldiers rotated through, but Kaz could swear that he saw the man with the eyepatch and the bandana more than once. Sitting in city streets waiting for anyone kind enough to hand him food or money, Kaz had seen the man at least four times. On the outskirts of Tokyo, it was less likely, but Kaz wasn’t sure what he was and wasn’t seeing at this point.

He and Aina ate three to four times a week. The habit had been going on for at least half a year, with food becoming more and more rare. Children all around Kaz were dropping like flies. They were left for someone else to deal with. The only thing that kept Kaz moving was Aina. She depended on him, and he depended on her.

Stretched out on the dirty, hole-ridden, and smelly futon, Kaz pushed his fingers through Aina’s fur. She stopped stealing from the farmer a long time ago, so at least Kaz didn’t have to worry about that. What did worry him, though, was that he could once again feel every single bone in her scrawny body. She didn’t have the energy to hunt, and she was growing older as the days passed. Kaz hadn’t known how old she was when he met her, but now he could see white poking through her amber fur all over her body.

If Kaz tugged a hair too hard on her fur, patches of it would come up with his fingers. The first time Kaz did it, Aina bit him so hard that he bled for hours. Now, it didn’t bother her in the slightest.

Kaz brushed over a sensitive spot on her ribs, and Aina growled at him. Kaz pulled his hand away from her and set it on his sunken stomach. Somehow, he had gotten past the point of being hungry. In the morning he would be hungry, and at night he would be in so much pain that he couldn’t sleep, but during the day the pain left him. Kaz didn’t have to worry about any of it. Occasionally his stomach rumbled, but Kaz found that if he didn’t move, then he didn’t get hungry.

Mosquitoes landed on him, but Kaz didn’t flick them away. Bugs from Aina would transfer and bite up his back and his leg, but there was nothing to be done about it. Three years ago, Kaz would have sat in the river and let the water cool down his burning skin. Now, Kaz was afraid that the gentle current would be strong enough to pull him away and downstream.

Overhead, children played in the dirt street. Some played farther down the river, but the rumors of a mean dog that bit children were enough to keep them away from the air raid shelter. Kaz was grateful that the old thing had stayed up the whole time that he and Aina lived there.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have given you those fish when I first met you,” Kaz said.

Aina’s ears flickered. The movement in her ears was all that Kaz had to go by that she was still alive and listening to him.

“You might have been better off without a human to take care of, Aina,” he continued.

Aina whined at him. It was time to be quiet.

Kaz took her hint and closed his eyes.

 

**Winter, 1951.**

 

After so long, Kaz stopped wondering how he and Aina made it through the days. They lived off what Kaz could gather when he had the energy to go to the city. That energy was rare and short-lived. Sometimes Kaz spent days in Tokyo, begging for food or money. It was getting to the point that he was old and dirty enough that people turned their noses up at him. The younger children, some only by four or five years, were far more likely to get food from passersby. They still had the energy and hope left in them to smile.

Kaz couldn’t place a date on when he had given up.

He stopped seeing flashes of the soldier around town, and the other Americans were growing fewer and fewer. Kaz could hear people, when he bothered to listen to what they said, talking about the end of the American occupation. Japan was back on its own two feet. The government and economy were thriving. Women had more rights, and the school system was growing better with each day.

Kaz, sitting against a dingy building, withered away by the minute.

Kaz knew he fell asleep at some point but waking up was a mystery to him. The sun was high above him, and beating down on his sensitive skin. He scratched his body nearly to pieces day and night. There was an itch that wasn’t caused by bug bites, and he couldn’t get rid of it. It lurked just under his skin and crawled up and down his spine.

Summoning what felt like the last of his strength, Kaz hauled himself upright on his cane. It took somewhere around two minutes, and he was acutely aware of the people staring at him. None offered their help, content to watch him suffer. Leaving their stares behind, Kaz shambled to his home by the river with Aina.

She was lying in the air raid shelter when Kaz got there, more than five hours later. It used to only take him an hour, sometimes two. With barely enough strength to keep his foot on the ground and the cane in his hand, it became harder and harder to hop along. Kaz had to stop numerous times; it only took a few feet for him to run out of breath and need to stop.

Kaz lowered himself next to Aina. He felt like an old man. It took ages to get down onto the futon, and each of his bones creaked along the way. Kaz stretched out on his back, with his left arm close to Aina. He petted her fur as gently as he could. She was becoming snappier and more sensitive, especially after Kaz had been gone for a few days.

“I’m sorry, Aina, I couldn’t get anything,” Kaz croaked. It hurt to open his mouth wide enough to speak, let alone make any noise. He blinked slowly, staring up at the crumbling dirt ceiling. For about a year, the dirt had been sprinkling down on the two of them like a gentle shower of rain. Kaz didn’t have the effort to brush it away from his face.

Aina stayed curled up next to Kaz’s side.

“I haven’t gotten anything in a while, I know,” he mumbled. “But I promised I would take care of you.” Kaz moved his hand to her ears and gently scratched. She had bugs hopping and buzzing all around her. Kaz couldn’t blame her; he had just as many surrounding him, even when he was moving.

Kaz continued petting Aina for a long time. When her eyes didn’t open, he felt the first tweaks of worry twist in his gut. Kaz’s chest shivered involuntarily—it wasn’t even as cold as it had been in years passed. He pushed against Aina’s head gently. It lolled to the side and off her paws.

“Aina…?” Kaz whispered. His voice was weaker now than it had ever been. The swirling in his head migrated through his whole body at lightning speed. It made his fingers and toes cold, and his stomach hurt like he’d never felt before.

Strenuously, Kaz pushed himself upright. He sat up as best as he could and pushed on Aina’s ribs, where he knew they were most sensitive. Kaz wasn’t sure how he had any water left in his body, but tears were clouding up his vision. His throat was constricted. It hurt to breathe. His eyes were burning in their sockets.

“Aina?” he tried again. He pushed on her ribs harder.

She didn’t so much as give a flicker of her ears.

“Please wake up,” Kaz pleaded. His hand was trembling so badly that he could barely reach out and pet her properly. He was scared to touch her, afraid that he would feel the cold that he hadn’t sensed before. Each rib and bump in her spine were prominent, peeking through her thinning fur.

“ _Please wake up_ ,” he repeated, desperation creeping into him. The frown that dragged his mouth downward was almost to the point of causing him pain. “I don’t want you to leave me.”

Kaz, struggling not to flop over, curled up onto his side next to Aina. His shoulder was pinned by his body, but he had enough room to reach out and hold her paw. Each pad, rough and worn, was cold to the touch. Kaz’s lip and chin were quivering as he scooted himself closer to Aina’s body, just as starved as he was. Kaz tucked his head close to Aina’s chest, wanting nothing more than to hear her heart flutter one last time in her chest.

 

The next day, Kaz walked back to Tokyo. His fingers were bruised and bleeding, and his entire arm was sore from use. Somehow, Kaz found himself at the Tokyo train station. Kaz took one step into the subway and then tumbled down the stairs. His cane snapped under the frail weight of his body. People gasped, but refused to help him. Kaz took shelter where he fell, against a pillar that faced the stairs.

At the air raid shelter, there was a new mound of dirt that sat unmarked.

Kaz never went back.


	3. America

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My medic's name is Nathan, but he's pretty much the same loveable dude you'd see anywhere.

**March 23, 1952.**

 

“Miller. Benedict Miller.”

“And you’re sure that this is him?

“I’m certain. Miller was in my squad. He was drafted at 18 and went missing nearly the second we set foot on Japanese soil. They must have captured him; we all assumed that he was dead.”

“He looks far younger than what you’re saying, Boss. Shouldn’t he be in his twenties now, if he were alive?”

“I know my men.” A pause. “He’s the last of his family. His parents were never in his life, and his grandparents are dead. Just take him home. He doesn’t deserve to be here anymore.”

“If he was a POW, why wasn’t he handed over to us at the end of the war? It’s been nearly seven years.”

“Japan is full of freaks these days; someone must have thought it was funny to keep him for longer than they needed to.”

Kaz rolled his head to the side. Every cell in his body was screaming and alight with fire. Something was in the crook of his elbow, and he felt oddly restrained where he lay.

“Miller? Are you awake?”

Kaz faintly recognized the voice. His eyelids fluttered, but he didn’t have the strength to open them against the burning white light overhead. He groaned, and feebly twitched his fingers.

“Don’t strain yourself, Miller. We got you out of that place. You’re in a hospital now, and you’re safe here, with us.”

Kaz struggled to mumble out something, but his tongue was heavy. Another groan slipped past his lips.

“I’ll give him another dose of painkillers; I can’t image what he must be feeling right now.”

“I don’t think they looked after his wounds. You need to make sure that he doesn’t have an infection. And his skin is in rough shape. He’s been burned all over, and it looks like he’s been scratching himself raw.”

“I’ve never seen a case of malnutrition as severe as this in my life. He must have been eating once, maybe twice a week.” There was a prodding at the burned, sensitive skin on his right side. “The burning here isn’t as bad as it is on his left leg. I’m not sure if it they inflicted the burns intentionally. There’s no way to tell. Perhaps it was to cauterize?”

“He was a prisoner.” Kaz could vaguely recognize the voice as a man’s. “It had to have been intentional.”

Kaz felt a rush of molten metal surge into his elbow. It spread through his body like the consuming flames from the bombs. Kaz’s head was suddenly swimming and felt oddly like it was stuffed full of cotton. A large hand rested over his own as everything swirled and mixed. He couldn’t tell the difference between the people speaking, or if he was the one mumbling away in some foreign language.

“Miller, I’m going to stay right here. Sleep and take care of yourself. I’m not going anywhere. You’ve got the best doctor on the team looking after you, and more than enough nurses. If you need something, make sure you speak up.”

Kaz whined high in his throat. Making the noise hurt everything in his body.

A quieter voice. “What a dedicated sergeant.”

“Look after him.”

“Of course, Boss.”

 

Kaz was so out of it that, most of the time, he couldn’t tell if he was in an elementary school or a hospital. There was a pretty nurse with brown hair who came to check on him, but sometimes she sneered at him and called him a waste of space. More often than not, a man with short-cropped brown hair was there, checking on him and inspecting various things. Sometimes there was a man in a chair next to Kaz, staring intently at him until Kaz fell asleep again. Kaz couldn’t tell the difference between the two men that visited him. Other times, his mother was in the chair, waiting for him to get better.

The first time that Kaz truly opened his eyes, wafting through layer after layer of painkillers and other drugs, one of the men was sitting in the chair. Kaz wasn’t positive that the man ever slept. If he did, Kaz never saw him while he was.

“Where am I?” Kaz asked.

“You’re gonna have to keep the Japanese under wraps,” the man replied. Kaz could recall a very blurry memory of someone calling this man Boss. It was something to do with a rice ball, but Kaz couldn’t properly remember with his head as fuzzy as it was. “Everyone here thinks that you’re Benedict Miller, a soldier of mine. Poor kid was blown sky high by a landmine, but I needed to give them something. Otherwise they wouldn’t treat you.” He paused. “Maybe Nathan would have, but the rest of the hospital would have turned you out. Japan isn’t very high on the allies list right now.”

Kaz shook his head at the man. The action was weak; he barely turned his head from side to side. “I don’t understand English,” he muttered.

“Might be better if you just keep your mouth shut,” the man said. “Do you want food? They took the feeding tube out of you. I can get you something to eat. Stay here. Not like you could go very far, anyways.” The man stood up and exited Kaz’s room.

“Wait,” Kaz pleaded, but the man was already gone. Kaz turned his head as far as his stiff neck would allow. As far as he could tell, it looked like a Japanese hospital, but he couldn’t understand any of the signs on the walls or the words being spoken outside of his room.

Almost as soon as the man left, a pretty young nurse entered the room.

She paused at the doorway, her eyes wide with shock. Walking briskly, as if she was holding back a run, she turned and left Kaz’s room. Kaz grimaced. He was used to people reacting like that when they saw him. He was disfigured and ugly.

A minute later, the nurse returned with a tall man who had short brown hair. He was wearing American army getup, but he had a stethoscope around his neck and looked much kinder than any of the soldiers Kaz had ever seen.

“Glad to see that you’re awake, Miller,” he said with a soft smile. The nurse walked to one side of Kaz, holding a clipboard to her chest. The man took his spot on the other side of Kaz, looking him over. “You’ve been asleep for quite a while, although I can’t say I blame you,” he said with a sheepish laugh. Kaz didn’t have the foggiest idea what he was saying, but he was grateful to see someone laughing.

The man pulled a small, metal stick from his breast pocket, and clicked the back of it. A light flickered on, startling Kaz. With his other hand, the man peeled open each of Kaz’s eyes and shined the light back and forth.

“It looks like the acute malnutrition you suffered has taken its toll on your eyes, but I hope that we got you in time to prevent the effects from getting worse.” He put the light away and then stuck the earpieces of his stethoscope into his ears. “Breathe deeply, please, Benedict.”

Kaz’s eyes darted around the room nervously. What was the man asking him to do? Was he going to give himself away with something as ridiculous as a medical exam? The man gave a small, fleeting frown at Kaz’s chest. Then he looked up at Kaz with a fond smile. “Your heart sounds much better now. You had pneumonia when you first came to us, but we’ve taken care of that.”

The nurse, pen in hand, seemed to be jotting down everything that the doctor was saying.

Next, from his other breast pocket, he pulled out a tape measure. He wrapped it around Kaz’s left bicep and stared carefully at the numbers. “On the feeding tube alone your weight has increased. There was a severe lack of muscle in your body. I’m not sure what happened to you, but they probably atrophied without the regular use that a soldier would normally have.”

He stuffed the tape measure back into his breast pocket. “Have you had any food to eat today, Miller?”

Kaz stared at him. He could tell that he was asking a question, but he couldn’t even pretend to know what it was about.

The nurse piped up. “Can you talk, Benedict?”

Kaz didn’t know what Benedict was, but he heard the man say it, too. He gave a tiny, nervous shrug of his shoulders. The doctor frowned deeply.

“Benedict, can you say anything at all?” he asked.

Kaz shrugged again.

The doctor nodded solemnly. The nurse reached over and put her hand over Kaz’s. “It’s going to be okay, Benedict. I know that what they did to you was wrong while you were a prisoner, but there have been lots of you. You’ll see; life will be just as good as before the war.”

Kaz worked his jaw back and forth, contemplating asking something in Japanese. Surely someone in this place would know more than just English? Then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the soldier from before. He had a tray of food in his hands that smelled tantalizingly delicious. Kaz couldn’t tear his eyes away from the tray. The nurse and doctor’s gazes followed his.

“Ah, Boss, I could have gotten him something if you had asked,” the doctor said.

The man raised a hand. “No need. I can take care of my men.”

“I’m sure he’s very hungry. We’ll let you help him, sir,” the nurse said. She nodded her head at the man and then left the way she came. The doctor paused by the soldier to speak with him in a hushed tone that Kaz couldn’t make out, and then left.

“Good job not talking,” he said. The man walked over to Kaz in his heavy boots and set the tray on Kaz’s lap. “Don’t try and eat all of it, you’ll just get sick.”

Kaz, going right for a pile of white mush, scooped some of it into his hands and practically licked it off his fingers. It was the best food he’d had in years. Warm and creamy and tasting very faintly of potatoes.

“No manners, huh?”

Kaz sloughed off the man’s words and moved onto the bread and meat. He got halfway through the roll of bread when his stomach churned, but Kaz finished it all off anyways.

“Nathan says you’re doing much better than anyone expected of you. Everyone here thought that you were going to die. Hell, I thought you were dead when I found you the first time.”

Kaz’s stomach was starting to feel painfully tight as he gobbled down hunks of meat. The chefs had been liberal with the salt and pepper, things Kaz hadn’t tasted in what felt like a decade. He was certain that his face was turning green at this point, but he continued to eat.

“I knew you were going to make it,” the soldier mused. “You were such a stubborn brat when I met you; there was no way that you were going to give up so easily.”

One bite into a pile of small, chopped carrots, and Kaz’s stomach lurched. He barely managed to get his head over the side of the bed before violently puking up everything he had just eaten. Some came out his nose and left his entire face burning. Tears streamed down Kaz’s face, and he stared in disgust at the food he had barely bothered to chew before swallowing.

The man had no reaction other than to move his boots away from the pile of vomit. “I told you not to eat too much,” he scolded.

Kaz, determined as ever, despite feeling like his face was going to burn off, turned back to the tray of food. He reached out for it, but it was snatched away from his lap at lightning speed.

“Give that back!” Kaz snapped.

“If you eat too much, you’ll puke again. Then you’ll have to get a feeding tube put back in you. Just eat what you can handle for now.”

Kaz stuck out his hand at the man. “I want more.” His stomach would say otherwise, but Kaz could not remember the last time he had real food for the life of him.

“I’ll give you more later,” the man decided. He set the tray just a few inches out of Kaz’s reach. While Kaz’s hand was still out, he took it in his own. “You can call me Boss.”

Kaz furrowed his eyebrows at the strange action. He pulled his hand away from Boss. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Boss,” the man repeated. He pointed to himself. “Boss. I’m your Boss.”

Kaz’s gaze wouldn’t settle itself, flicking all over the man and trying to figure him out. He seemed impatient, waiting for Kaz to get it.

“Boss?” Kaz tried. The word was strange, and uncomfortable coming from his mouth.

“That’s right,” the man praised.

Kaz pursed his lips. He knew next to nothing about English names, but Boss sounded like an incredibly strange one. Knowing generally how introductions went, Kaz decided to give his name. 

“Kazuhira,” he said.

“It’s Benedict Miller now,” Boss corrected. He pointed at Kaz. “You’re Benedict Miller.”

“Kazuhira,” Kaz said again. He was getting frustrated with this man. “My name is Kazuhira. I don’t know what you keep saying to me.”

Boss groaned and pushed his hair out of his face. “You’re going to give me a lot of grief, aren’t you?” He leaned back in his plush chair, and procured a cigar and lighter from his pocket. “Hey? Doc?” he called. “Gonna need your help in here.”

 

**April 28, 1945.**

 

From the moment he woke up, Kaz noticed the changes in the hospital. The Americans were packing up, and more Japanese doctors and nurses were taking their places. Everyone kept coming to check on Kaz, asking if he was ready to leave. The man that visited Kaz, his Boss, only ever spoke English to him and insisted that Kaz practiced it while no one was around to hear him trip over the foreign syllables. Kaz didn’t speak it fluently, yet, but he was starting to understand most of it. He grew used to being called Benedict or Miller and even responded to the name. Most of the time, he even knew what his doctor was talking about when he came to visit.

Boss came around less and less often, only checking on Kaz when it was necessary. Only the nurse and his doctor came around daily.

His English was rough, so Kaz kept his mouth shut. Other doctors came to visit Kaz once, pestering him to say something, anything. His doctor, Nathan, persuaded the men that Kaz had some disorder. The words were strange to Kaz, but the other doctors nodded and hummed in agreement. After that, Nathan was the only doctor to visit him. He spoke in soft, kindly tones, and never pressed Kaz to speak. Kaz was incredibly thankful whenever he came around. Nathan was the polar opposite of Boss.  
At the end of the two weeks, early in the morning, Boss came in with two metal apparatuses. Both had pegs at the bottom, one curved in jagged angles, while the other looked like it could be strapped onto something.

“What is it?” Kaz asked.

“This,” Boss said, lifting up one of the metal devices, “is your crutch. This,” he continued, lifting the other one, “is your new leg.”

“My new leg?” Kaz balked. It looked nothing like a leg. He had no idea that legs could be replaced in the first place. “How does it work?”

“Sit on the edge of the bed,” Boss instructed.

Kaz did so, with his leg and his stump dangling over the side. Boss pushed up the hospital gown to Kaz’s knees. He crouched in front of Kaz, one hand on the back of Kaz’s knee as he fitted the plastic cup with the metal peg to Kaz’s leg. It felt awkward and painful against the sensitive, burned skin, but Kaz sat through the process with a grimace.

“Why do I need a new leg?” he asked. “I can live without one.”

“Yeah, sure, but if we give you this thing, then people won’t look at you like some monster,” Boss said.

Kaz frowned.

Boss set up a few straps, tightening the plastic around Kaz’s leg. Kaz was horrified to stand up and test it out, but also incredibly curious to see how it would work. Would it really be like having a leg again?

“Now this,” Boss said as he stood up. “Give me your arm.”

Kaz did as he was told. He held up his arm, and Boss slipped his arm into several plastic braces. It was just long enough that Kaz could wrap his fingers around a peg that came out of the side of the crutch. It felt sturdier than the one he had been using as a child and far better than the stick he had been using as a cane for a long time.

“Doc says you’re still growing, so they have to be frequently changed. For now, it’ll work.” Boss nodded and stood back from Kaz. 

Kaz stayed where he was. He felt Boss was examining him, checking him like a piece of hardware. His lone eye wandered up and down Kaz’s body, particularly at the new leg and how the crutch fit against the scrawny muscles of his arm.

“Get up,” Boss demanded.

Kaz, as tentative as a newborn deer, slid off the bed. He caught himself with the crutch first; that was no challenge to him. It was far better in his grip than anything else he had used in the past. The metal was cold against his arm, but he could lean into it easily without the fear of it breaking or bending under his weight.

The strange part was the new leg. Kaz tried to find a balance between his legs, but the memories of having two of them were long gone. He tested his weight on each, defaulting to his flesh and blood leg.

“I don’t like it,” Kaz said.

“Suck it up, soldier,” Boss replied. “Walk yourself out of this room.”

Kaz frowned at Boss. He looked back down at his legs after a moment, trying to figure out how he would balance on three points of contact, rather than just two. He was used to doing a half-walk half-hop to get where he needed to go, but he assumed that to pass Boss’s test, Kaz would need to try and actually walk.

Deciding to just go for it, Kaz put the crutch forward first. The metal leg, heavy and awkward hanging from him, was next to follow. Kaz nearly buckled, but he pushed his weight down onto the crutch with all his might. His foot was next. He could hear Boss take a step forward to keep up with him. Kaz repeated the slow and agonizing process until he was in the doorway to his hospital room.

“You’ve got the hang of it,” Boss said.

Kaz couldn’t see Boss’s face, nor read the tone of his voice, but the compliment was enough to make his heart soar. Normally, all that he got was a reprimand for doing something that Boss didn’t like. Getting praise from Boss was nearly unheard of.

“Benedict!” the pretty nurse exclaimed from her station. She hustled over, standing to his side and fretting. “Are you sure that you’re well enough to be up and walking? Sir, you were only supposed to see if they fit him properly,” she said, turning to scold Boss.

“He got up on his own,” Boss said. “He’s much stronger than any of you doctors give him credit for. He survived this war on his own; he can walk across a room.”

Kaz, back to silence around other people who could hear him, walked out of the room and toward the nurse station. It was slow-going, but Boss kept pace with him the whole way. He was close enough to pick Kaz up if he fell, but far enough back to warn Kaz that he’d better not fall or Boss wouldn’t catch him on the way down.

Unsteady and as shaky as a lamb, Kaz walked all the way to the other end of the wide hospital room before needing to take a break. There was a set of chairs against the wall. Boss flopped down easily. Kaz stared warily at the other chair like it was going to spring to life and snap him up in greedy jaws.

“Weren’t you just exhausted?” Boss asked. He let his arms hang over the armrests, and didn’t have the decency to close his legs. “You’d better take a seat.”

Kaz shot Boss a dirty glare. He turned around so that his back was to the chair. Kaz tried to sit down carefully, controlling his movements but ended up landing just about as gracefully as Boss did. The silence that followed was comfortable, with a few nurses glancing over at them occasionally.

“The Americans are packing up today. We leave in just a few weeks,” Boss said. Boss pulled a cigar and a lighter from the breast pocket on his uniform. He looked over at Kaz, his expression dead serious. “You have two options. Stay in Japan and die, or leave this place and live.”

Fear clenched a cold hand around Kaz’s stomach. He had never left Japan, let alone Tokyo. “Where would I go?”

“That’s up to you to decide,” Boss said. The lighter clicked to life, and Kaz watched as he puffed on the cigar until it lit. 

 

Boss left that afternoon, abandoning Kaz to his thoughts. Kaz wanted to keep walking around and get the hang of it before he needed to do it around suspicious Americans, but the plastic cup of his leg was starting to chafe, and his fingers were sore from gripping the handle of his crutch so tightly.

The nurse, Caroline, was more than happy to help Kaz get back to his bed.

“I’ll send Nathan in here,” she said after situating Kaz on the edge of the bed. “He’ll show you how these work, and he’ll also show you how to take care of your leg with the prosthetic.”

Kaz nodded.

Caroline beamed at Kaz and then left him once again. Kaz turned his attention to the empty chair where Boss usually sat. Kaz couldn’t place the feeling that was working his stomach into knots. It felt somewhat like the hunger that he and Aina used to live in, but here he was given all the food he could ever need. How could he possibly be hungry?

The brief thought of his dog dragged Kaz backward into a pit of regret. All he could think of was Aina, growing skinnier and skinnier next to him. Kaz didn’t know what made him feel worse; that it was his fault that she starved, or that she was far too loyal to save her life. Kaz bit down on his lip until he tasted the first tang of coppery blood. Everyone was dead because of him.

“Miller?”

Fat tears welled up in Kaz’s blue eyes. He was the one who had gone back for the stupid picture. He was the one who thought he could live on his own with a dog. He was the one who was too scared to steal and too prideful to ask for help. A few drops rolled down his cheeks; Kaz mentally reprimanded himself. He didn’t deserve to cry, everything that had happened had been nobody’s fault but his own.

“Benedict.” A firm hand settled on his shoulder.

Kaz recoiled from the touch. “Boss!” he exclaimed, panicked.

“No, no, just me,” Nathan corrected. The doctor stood in front of Kaz, in his usual confusing mix of army getup and tools for a doctor. Kaz still didn’t know if Nathan was a soldier or not. Nathan’s smile was warm as he observed Kaz with his brown eyes. A flash of guilt passed through Kaz, why wasn’t he born with brown eyes? “You know, I think that’s the first thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Rather than talking more, Kaz clammed up. His eyes darted away from Nathan’s. He seemed sweet and kindly, but Kaz could also tell that he was just as observant as Boss.

“How did these treat you?” Nathan asked as he moved closer to Kaz. He helped Kaz’s arm out of the crutch and then began turning his arm over. “I’m interested to hear from you since Boss isn’t around to answer for you.”

Kaz shrugged. If he blew his cover just because Nathan was friendly, he would be in deep shit. Everyone here had to think that he was Benedict Miller.

“Any pain?” Nathan continued. He kneeled and began undoing the straps that held Kaz’s new leg to his skin.

Kaz nearly groaned aloud. It was starting to hurt his skin so badly just sitting in that thing. The burns on his leg were sensitive to this day.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Nathan murmured. He set aside the prosthetic and began to examine Kaz’s leg. “You were getting around pretty easily earlier, but we will have to make some changes. You’re still young and growing, and there’s the matter that you will continue to put on weight for some time now. We’ll get you a sock later, and I can teach you how to clean these to keep from getting an infection. Does that sound fair?”

Kaz nodded. Although he would never admit it, he was thankful that Boss had drilled the English lessons. If Kaz had no idea what Nathan was saying, he’d be a goner. Then again, Boss probably wouldn’t have left him if he had yet to understand.

“Miller,” Nathan started as he stood up, Kaz feared the worst, “are you afraid of doctors?”

Kaz furrowed his eyebrows at Nathan as he went to the sink in the room, and scrubbed his hands thoroughly. That was the last thing he was expecting.

“It’s the only thing I can think of since you speak so openly with Boss.” Nathan returned to Kaz’s side and sat down in the chair that Boss normally occupied.

Kaz had a distinct feeling that Nathan was trying to dissect him.

The silence that hung in the air was heavy.

Kaz could barely stand to listen to the clock ticking away in his room. How many seconds had he left Nathan without an answer, piling suspicion on himself? “Yes,” Kaz whispered.

Nathan’s eyebrow shot up for an instant, but he quickly regained control of his expression. “Do you want to tell me why doctors scare you?” he asked.

Kaz’s shoulders began moving up on their accord, but he stopped himself. “Doctors cut off my arm and leg,” Kaz remembered waking up in the elementary school every hour in blinding pain, until the one time that he didn’t hurt anymore. At the time, it hadn’t made sense. Now Kaz knew the truth, had lived with it for seven years.

“Can I ask you something else?” Nathan pried.

Kaz nodded. Boss had gone over how he was supposed to respond when people asked him about his ‘torture’ at the hands of the Japanese. The thought made Kaz’s throat burn. It was all a lie. He had been mistreated, but not in the way that the others thought.

Nathan unhooked something from his coat and extended it in his palm toward Kaz. Kaz picked up the card. It was made of hard plastic and had English letters on it. Kaz turned the card over in his hand. On the back, there were more letters.

“Can you read that to me?” Nathan asked.

Kaz’s stomach plummeted into his feet. Suddenly he could sense the world as it turned. His mouth was as dry as it had been when he lived with Aina. The same cold dread of finding her unmoving that afternoon permeated his entire body. His chest was shuddering out of control as Kaz tried to reign in his terror, he shook his head.

Nathan silently took the card back from Kaz and pinned it onto his coat.

“Are you going to arrest me?” Kaz croaked. He dared not look up at Nathan. It was a move that Aina pulled with him all the time whenever she did something bad.

“Why would I arrest you?” Nathan asked. “I just wanted to know if you could read.”

“I lied,” Kaz muttered.

“I knew,” was Nathan’s response.

Kaz briefly flicked his gaze to Nathan’s, and then away again.

“Boss can fool just about anyone if he tries. He convinced the entire hospital staff here, but I’m not blind, ‘Miller.' I knew Miller; I know that e Japanese army didn’t take him. That poor boy died from a landmine the moment we set foot on Japanese soil. I’ve no idea why Boss would lie about something like this, but I know that Boss wants to take you to America. He’s gone through a lot of trouble for you, ‘Miller.' It frustrates me that he doesn’t trust me enough to tell me these things, but I want to help him. Well, I want to help him help you.”

“Why?”

“Because I trust Boss,” Nathan said. “I know I said that I only wanted to ask one more thing of you, but can I get one more bit of information out of you?”

Kaz nodded. He was caught off-guard by this doctor. Nathan had known? Was Kaz’s act that obvious that anyone could figure it out if they were looking closely enough? He was also grateful. Grateful that Nathan hadn’t already kicked him out of the hospital. Grateful that Nathan was kind to him, despite knowing that he was Japanese. But he was afraid, too. Now that Nathan was positive that he was Japanese, surely the next step was to ask about his appearance.

Kaz knew he could lie, and say that his father was American, but he knew that the time wouldn’t work with his age. What if Nathan threw him out because of his German heritage, rather than his Japanese heritage?

“Would you tell me your real name?”

Kaz’s head snapped up. He stared at Nathan wide-eyed. What the _Hell_?

Nathan was smiling his usual friendly smile at Kaz. He was so much more different than Boss. Boss hadn’t even listened to Kaz when he gave his name that first day. He was so different from every single person that Kaz had ever met in his life. No one compared to the general goodwill that poured out of Nathan.

“Kazuhira.”

“Kazur- I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”

“Kazuhira.”

Nathan laughed. He brought up a hand to scratch the back of his head. “That’s a mouthful. Can I call you Kaz?”

Kaz nodded.

“So Kaz, we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. I don’t think Boss will be happy if he finds out that I know about you, so we’ll have to keep it a secret. Does that sound okay?”

The idea of lying to Boss made Kaz’s gut clench in his stomach, but he nodded solemnly. “What do you mean by work?” he asked.

“I want to teach you to read. People in America will believe that you can’t speak, but they won’t believe that you can’t read.”

 

**May 2, 1952.**

 

“Get up, soldier.”

Something heavy was dropped on top of Kaz, and he groaned, curling in on himself. He wasn’t quite sure when he had fallen asleep, but now it was extremely hard to pry his eyes open. They were sore after staring at the English letters for hours with Nathan. Only after Kaz had memorized the alphabet—which hadn’t taken too long to do—did Nathan let him rest.

“We don’t have much time,” Nathan told him. “We’re going to have to teach you as fast as we can.”

Kaz could only hope that he could live up to Nathan’s expectations.

Kaz mumbled unintelligibly as he turned onto his back, and forced his eyes open. Boss was standing over him in his uniform, a large backpack hanging off one shoulder. He’d dropped Kaz’s crutch onto him while he was sleeping.

“You could have woken me up like a normal person,” Kaz griped.

“Stop complaining,” Boss reprimanded.

Kaz shoved himself upright with his left arm and craned his neck from side to side. “I’m tired,” he muttered. Kaz threw the blanket off himself and then swung his lower half over the side of the bed. Boss was there in an instant, securing his prosthetic to his leg.

On his own, Kaz managed to get his arm through the loops in his brace and grasp his fingers around the handle.

“Tired? What were you doing?”

Kaz clenched his teeth. “Nathan kept me up,” he said. Boss’s eye darted straight up to Kaz’s. “He was showing me how to take care of this,” Kaz lied, wiggling his leg and prosthetic for emphasis.

Boss nodded.

Kaz hoped that he was a good enough liar to pass under Boss’s radar.

“Why did you wake me up?” Kaz asked, praying to switch topics smoothly.

“I’m taking you to the American military base. It’s our last few days here, and we need to secure your way home, Miller,” Boss explained. “Get up and prepare yourself, it’s going to be a long day.”

Kaz nodded solemnly. Boss left the room, waiting just outside the door for Kaz to stretch and then get up onto his legs. He was still wobbly, but it wasn’t as bad as the day before. What Kaz noticed this time was the pain that shot through his left leg as soon as he put weight on it. It was as if the very bone was crying out against the abuse it had endured. For seven years, Kaz had left it on its own, and now it was being rubbed raw by plastic and metal.

Holding back a grimace as best as he could, Kaz hobbled his way out of the hospital room. Boss gave him a once-over and then took off down the hallway. Kaz followed just a few steps behind him at all times.

They passed doctors and nurses, but none of them were Nathan or Caroline. Kaz spotted a few Japanese nurses with their hair in braids, being trained by the American nurses. The American girls were trying their best to speak Japanese, and the Japanese girls were doing what they could as well.

What would it be like outside of the hospital? Kaz didn’t know how long he had been cooped up, but he was sure it had been quite some time. He wasn’t positive, but he thought he could remember snow on the day that Aina died. Or was it the day that he found her dead? Kaz’s gut churned, and he stopped walking. Was it possible that Aina had been dead for days before Kaz found her? He was certain that he was turning green just from thinking about it.

“What’ the matter, Miller?” Boss barked. Kaz couldn’t hear a trace of real empathy in his voice.

“I was thinking about my dog,” Kaz said. He didn’t know why he said it, staring at the floor like a defeated child. It was obvious that Boss didn’t care.

Boss let the silence trail between them. “Your dog?” he finally asked. “Is it still alive?”

Kaz nearly collapsed. Way to drive a knife right through his heart. “No,” Kaz admitted. “She died a long time ago, I think.”

“You like dogs?” Boss asked. He started walking again. Kaz had no choice but to follow him.

“I had never had one until this dog. Aina wasn’t even my dog. She just stayed with me because I fed her.”

“Were you giving her all of your food?” Boss snickered. Kaz could feel the first burning of tears in his eyes. He knew Boss didn't mean to be so cruel; it was impossible for him to know what happened. “Is that why you were skin and bones when I found you?”

“I starved her,” Kaz hissed. He hated the way his voice cracked when he said it. For fuck’s sake, he was getting emotional in front of Boss. What kind of a soldier was he? Kaz’s brain hiccupped. He wasn’t a soldier at all. He was a Japanese child.

“On purpose?” Boss asked.

“No!” Kaz shouted.

The people at the entrance of the hospital turned to look at the two of them. Kaz could feel the color rising in his cheeks. What was he thinking, making a scene in a hospital?

“No,” Kaz repeated. He limped out of the hospital, brushing past Boss on his way out the door.

Once outside, Kaz allowed himself to stop. The fresh air felt amazing against his burning skin, and the sky was clear. Kaz let his eyes wander. The streets of Tokyo looked nothing like he remembered. Surely he hadn’t been in the hospital for _that_ long? Multiple buildings were marked off to be torn down, and lots of new buildings were going up in their places. None of the new buildings had a scrap of wood in them, which shocked Kaz.

“Nearly three-quarters of Tokyo was burned to the ground in the fire-bombing raids,” Boss said, suddenly appearing at Kaz’s side. “Not even these buildings can hold up against an atom bomb, but at least the whole city can’t burn down in one fell swoop.”

“The fire-bombing raids?” Kaz whispered although he had a good idea of what those were.

“Happened about seven or eight years ago. Spring through summer; we sent huge bomber planes with tons and tons of bombs. They were specially rigged to take down the old paper buildings. They were filled with napalm, and after a set amount of time once they made impact, the napalm would ignite.” Boss paused for a few seconds.

A few seconds was plenty of time for Kaz to see Mrs. Chouko catching on fire and burning until she died, screaming. With no warning, the searing of the flames licked at Kaz’s body. A woman ran down the street, her hair alight as she screamed for someone to take her baby. Kaz couldn’t see any fire in the streets, but the pain in his arm and leg were real. 

His grip on his crutch tightened until his knuckles turned white. His legs trembled with the effort of supporting his weight.

“Napalm is a chemical,” Boss continued. “It doesn’t go out unless it’s smothered. Water just makes it worse. Fire breathes like an animal. If you take away the air, you take away the fire. It’s nasty shit, but it did its job.”

That night, when Kaz was on fire, his mother had been hugging him. The firemen did nothing other than make the fires in the streets worse.

“I was in those raids,” Kaz murmured. “No one thought that the warnings were real.”

“Is that so?”

Kaz nodded. “I lost my mom in the very first raid. My arm and my leg, too.”

“That’s why we gave you new ones,” Boss said. 

Kaz was taken aback by Boss’s words. They felt like a needle under his skin, working back and forth without puncturing up or down again.

“You can’t think about those things anymore.” 

Kaz nearly snarled. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the ground beneath his feet. It seemed to be pulling away from him the longer he stood there.

“I saw people burn to death, Boss. Innocent people. I could have died—my _mother_ died!” he hissed. In the corner of his eyes, Boss crossed his arms.

“There’s no way you would have died. Otherwise, you would have starved in the streets like all the other kids. Besides, your mother and father owned a farm in Montana, and they died in a car crash. You lost your arm and leg to the sick Japanese army that was desperate to punish an American boy. You got that?”

“That’s not true,” Kaz growled. Kaz turned slowly to glare at Boss. If looks could kill, he was positive that Boss would be on the ground.

Rather than match Kaz’s anger, Boss looked as calm as ever. All it did was serve to make Kaz angrier than he already was.

“Sure it’s true,” Boss replied. There was a weight behind his words. A threat that he wouldn’t dare say in public, but that Kaz knew perfectly well was lingering. Boss would leave him in Japan. Boss would let him die if Kaz didn’t play along with what he wanted.

“Americans are monsters,” Kaz snarled. “You’re all savages that killed old ladies and children. You bombed residential areas! We didn’t have a single soldier in sight! There were factories miles away, why didn’t you bomb those instead?” Kaz stepped closer to Boss, getting in the larger man’s space as much as he dared.

“The Japanese did plenty of awful things, too. Lower your voice, soldier,” Boss warned. His blue eye narrowed at Kaz, attempting to put him in his place.

“I’m not a soldier!” Kaz yelled.

A few heads turned to look at them. Thankfully, most were Japanese and had no idea what the altercation was about.

“I said to lower your goddamn voice, Miller.”

“My name is Kazuhira!” he hollered.

In less than a second, Kaz had all the wind knocked out of his lungs. His ribs felt like they were going to snap under the weight of the punch that Boss dealt him. Kaz landed flat on his butt in the dirt, attempting to curl up and protect his vulnerable stomach. His prosthetic was twisted at an awkward angle behind him, and it hurt to shift his leg even an inch.

Kaz mustered up the best glare that he could and turned it to Boss. It was gone in an instant. The look Boss gave him was more than Kaz could ever hope to achieve.

He looked _murderous_.

Fear bubbled high in Kaz’s throat, but he squashed it like an ant under his shoe. As fast and as hard as he could, Kaz whipped his cane from the dirt and smacked it into the side of Boss’s leg.

The man crumpled from the sudden attack, on his knee in front of Kaz as he clutched his leg in his hands.

Now that Boss wasn’t speaking or saying anything to him, Kaz felt the fear return. It clawed at his insides, making him regret everything he had ever done in his life. What was he thinking, attacking Boss?! This was going to be the end of him, he was certain. 

Kaz didn’t realize he was holding his breath until Boss looked up at him. Kaz was expecting that same deathly look, but he was back to the calm façade that Kaz was so used to. If anything, it scared Kaz more than if he was angry.

“You just attacked your C.O., soldier,” Boss growled.

“I’m—“ Kaz cut himself off. No. He wasn’t sorry. “I’m not scared of you.”

A smirk flashed across Boss’s lips. A cold hand of fear encased Kaz’s heart.

A moment was all it took for Boss to send his fist against Kaz’s cheek, leaving Kaz reeling. No way in Hell Kaz was going to roll over, though. With the same intent as before, Kaz whipped his cane at Boss, this time catching the man on his side. Boss grunted from the impact but otherwise made no other move.

Boss tangled his hand in the front of Kaz’s hospital garb and yanked him up off the ground. Without his shoulders for leverage, Kaz suddenly felt very helpless. In a tangle of limbs, Boss switched Kaz around and got his arm around the young boy’s throat. He pressed down just enough to restrict Kaz’s breathing and make him gasp.

“For a kid at least you can fight,” he growled.

Kaz furrowed his eyebrows. Did he just hear a huff of laughter from Boss? His blood was boiling. How dare Boss take this situation lightly? Kaz could barely move in the hold that Boss had him in. One arm around his throat, the other holding the crutch at a safe distance. Boss used his own legs to keep Kaz’s from moving too much.

Kaz burned with shame at the people who were staring at them, wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

Sweat beading on his hairline, Kaz forced his muscles to relax. He couldn’t win a battle of strength with Boss.

“Done already?” Boss asked, incredulous.

“I give up,” Kaz grumbled. It was an odd sensation, keeping himself relaxed while still on guard. “Leave me in Japan. I’d rather die here than go anywhere with a monster like you.”

“You don’t even know me,” Boss chastised, another small puff of laughter coming from him. He slackened his grip on Kaz by a fraction of an inch.

Knowing that it was now or never, Kaz dipped his head forward and then snapped it back against Boss. He was a great deal shorter than Boss. He had been aiming for his nose, but his chin would do. Boss recoiled from the attack, giving Kaz enough time to skitter away from him. Unwilling to show his back, Kaz flipped over, gasping for breath now that his throat was freed.

He was panting heavily, his pale eyes trained on Boss. His chest was sore from the first punch, and his face felt like it was going to explode any second from the other punch. Boss kneeled a foot away from Kaz, rubbing his chin and mouth. When he pulled his hand away, his lower lip was split down the side.

“Damn that hurt,” Boss muttered.

“Yeah? Well, you shouldn’t have punched me,” Kaz retorted.

Boss looked at his bloody fingers and then to Kaz. On his face, the barest hint of a smile that Kaz had ever seen. Kaz furrowed his eyebrows. Wasn't Boss mad? Or was he angrier than ever? Boss put his hands on his raised knee and pushed himself up to stand. He brushed off his pants, and wiped the back of his wrist across his mouth, all the while leaving Kaz in the dirt.

“I didn’t think you had the guts to stand up to me,” Boss said.

Kaz looked Boss up and down. In that minute, he was harder to read than ever. A threat? A compliment? Kaz hadn’t the foggiest. 

Boss stooped down and grabbed Kaz by his left arm. Using barely any strength, he hauled the Japanese boy to his feet.

“Don’t try it again. Otherwise, you’ll really be sore,” Boss continued. He didn’t seem to be angry, but Kaz couldn’t help but feel that this was like one of those times when his mother was pretending not to be mad at him.

“Did you mean it?” Boss asked.

Kaz furrowed his eyebrows and squirmed away from Boss’s grip once he was on his feet. He took a step back, wary of being knocked down again. “…Boss?”

“Did you mean what you said?” Boss repeated. “That you would be more willing to stay and die in Japan than to go away.”

Kaz looked away. He had said that at the moment to get Boss to let his guard down, but he wasn’t sure. If it had been so easy to say, was it true?

Boss waited for a while and then shrugged. “Let’s go to the base,” he decided. “It’s a long walk, and I want to get it over with sooner, rather than later. They’re going to ask you a lot of questions. I’ll expect you to do most of the talking. I’m not always going to be around to cover your ass.”

Kazuhira nodded.

 

The men at the military base were scrambling to set up everything Kaz needed to get back into the states. After all, Benedict Miller had been declared dead years ago. It was hard to bring a man back from the dead. Kaz sat around for most of it, glad to be off his feet.

Boss sat in the corner of the base in a chair, silent. He didn’t bother to light up a cigar or pick up a book. He didn’t talk to anyone that walked in and out of the base. He kept his eye trained on Kaz, and that made him fidget. Kaz knew that his punishment for attacking Boss was still lingering somewhere in Boss’s head. There was no way that he was going to let that slip by him.

“The house your parents owned was sold while you were held here,” the woman helping Kaz said, bringing him out of his thoughts. “Until then, we can house you with other soldiers. You won’t be expected to leave if you do not want to. The government is doing everything that it can to help you get through this.”

“I appreciate it,” Kaz said. He was honest with her, how could he not appreciate moving to a whole new country? The Americans were going to take care of him, despite also ruining everything he had ever known.

“There is going to be a welcoming for you when you get back to the states. Your Boss lives near a base in California. Is that where you would like to go?” she asked.

“Yes,” Kaz said. “I want to stay close to him.”

She nodded and scribbled a few things down on the papers in front of her. “Then the welcome will be in California, too. It will be a formal event. We will have to get you fitted with a new uniform before then. The President will be there to greet you.”

“The President?” Kaz asked. He had no idea who this person was. He prayed that the confusion wasn’t as obvious on his face as he thought it was.

“Yes, and lots of reporters. People will want to have interviews with you. You are not inclined to give anyone an interview if you do not want to. We will have someone dedicated to the press who will discuss what happened with you, and they will handle the reporters. Does that sound fair?”

“Yes,” Kaz said. It would be easier than saying no and earning more questions. Now the only problem was thinking up a story that was believable. What kind of American had Miller been? A coward who would cry from the torture, or one who would have lost his limbs defying authority and trying to escape? Kaz would have to ask Boss about it later. 

The lady nodded again and dove into a new subject. Kaz, trying his best not to be obvious, slowly turned his head. Boss was no longer in the corner. He wasn’t surprised. Kaz knew that Boss wasn’t the type to sit and wait around for him forever.

“I’m very sorry, but is there anything else I need to do?” Kaz interrupted, feeling bad for cutting off the lady. “I’m sure Boss can explain what I need to know. He’s gone, and I have to catch up to him.”

The lady blinked at Kaz. She furrowed her eyebrows and gave a hefty sigh. “No, there is nothing else I need from you. Take these papers to your Boss. Make sure that you both understand them.”

“I will,” Kazuhira assured. He stood up and then took the papers from the lady, holding them between his fingers and the handle of the crutch. “Thank you for helping me.”

The lady nodded and waited patiently for Kaz to leave.

Once outside of the building, Kaz scanned the immediate area for Boss. There were no hulking Americans in army suits smoking cigars in this vicinity, though. Kaz turned around slowly, taking in his surroundings. He knew that the hospital was near the Tokyo train station, where Boss found him. This place was an hour walk from there. Kaz could see the ocean to his left, and a familiar-looking river just in front of it. Kaz’s heart twisted as he stared at the gleaming light on the river. He wrenched his eyes away. Like Boss had said, he couldn’t think about those things anymore.

Ways away, Kaz could see the gleaming white top of the hospital. He set his jaw and began walking in that direction. A few—closer to all—pedestrians turned to stare at Kaz as he limped past them. With each step, the prosthetic was becoming more and more uncomfortable. It hurt Kaz more than he would ever admit. Each time it touched the ground, jolts of throbbing pain shot through Kaz’s spine.

Barely a block away from the military base, Kaz could feel his legs giving out. His right seemed to be doing okay, but the bones in his left were bursting with aches and throbs that ricocheted through his entire body. The hospital was still a long walk away, and there was no way that Kaz would risk sleeping in the middle of the street at night. He knew what it was like to fall asleep in the middle of Tokyo, and he wasn’t keen to relive the experience.

Kaz set his right foot down, paused for a moment, and then moved his left. When the base of his prosthetic hit the ground, Kaz cried out in pain. He doubled over, and then his knees gave out shortly after.

Kaz’s knees collided first, and then his chin. His teeth clacked and scraped together, and through the mist of pain, he was certain he bit his tongue. Kaz rolled onto his side, groaning at the weight pressing down on his right shoulder. He could feel the blood pulsing through his body, as frantic as his thoughts. Did Boss leave him to die? Was this his punishment for lashing out? Was this what he deserved for all the things he had done?

Like they had done in the past, people walked around Kaz, treating him as if he were infected with some horrible disease.

Kaz choked on a few sniffles, trying in vain to keep from crying in broad daylight in front of so many strangers. The last time he had been like this was at the train station, waiting for death to come. Kaz spared a few of his thoughts for Boss and Nathan. If they hadn’t found him and helped him, he could have died sooner. Now he was going to have to wait in the streets for years again just to die.

The first edge of blurriness crept into Kaz’s vision. Why couldn’t he have just gone with Aina and his mother when he saw them at the train station? Why did he have to go back for Boss?

Too trapped in his misery, Kaz barely registered the eyes that were staring into his. It took a moment to process, but when it did, Kaz jumped. He was too weak to push himself up and away from the dark eyes. Kaz stared back at the child, only a year or two younger than he was. The boy was on the ground, and his cheeks were sunken in.

Kaz watched as a fly swirled around the boy, and then landed on his open eye.

A startled scream escaping Kaz, he scrambled away from the dead boy. Every cell in his body was begging him to lie down and forget what he saw. He had seen plenty of dying children before, and it never bothered him. Kaz had been one of them at one point.

“Is he crazy?” someone nearby asked, in hushed Japanese.

“I think he might be. All of the Americans around here are going crazy.”

Kaz’s brain didn’t have the energy to spare to be upset about being called American. With what he had left, Kaz struggled to stand and hobbled away from the boy. Lifting his left leg off the ground, Kaz returned to his limping hop that was more comfortable to him. He managed to get across the street and slid down against the side of a different building. Kaz didn’t dare look back at the boy, but he could still feel those dark eyes burning through him.

Kaz barely had his eyes shut for more than a second, resigned to his fate once more when he heard the crunching of boots nearby.

“You could have stayed at the base and waited for me,” Boss said matter-of-factly.

Kaz cracked an eye open at Boss. “I thought you left me.”

“I did, but I was going back,” the older man chided. “Can you get up?”

Kaz nodded. He rejected Boss’s outstretched hand and struggled once more to get to his foot. The prosthetic was weighing him down, and he set it down gingerly on the ground. He didn’t want Boss to see him being so weak.

Despite his best efforts, Kaz saw Boss narrow his eye. Of _course_ , he knew. What didn’t the man know about Kaz?

Kind enough not to hurt Kaz’s pride, Boss nodded and began walking down the street. With Boss’s back to him, Kaz felt comfortable enough to pick up his left leg, and hobble down the street on just his right. Boss tilted his head this way and that as they walked, and eventually stopped.

“What’s wrong, Boss?” Kaz asked.

Boss lowered down, holding his hands behind him. Kaz frowned.

“Piggyback?” Kaz asked, wary of such a kind gesture.

“You’re not walking properly, and it’s slowing us down. Hop on.”

Kaz pursed his lips and glanced around at the few people that were still on the street. It was becoming darker by the minute. He knew that he was slowing Boss down.

“Why don’t you just leave me?”

“Because if I leave you, then you’ll go back to sitting in some dark alley. You’re a kid, Kazuhira, let someone take care of you for once.”

Kaz nearly collapsed. Boss knew his name? Boss cared enough to acknowledge that he was still young? Kaz narrowed his eyes after the initial shock and gratitude swept over him. A body double?

“I don’t understand you,” he said, eyeing Boss like a snake that might spring forward at any second. “What am I? A charity case?”

“I don’t think a charity case would have hit me twice with a cane and nearly broken my jaw with his thick skull,” Boss quipped. “Now hop on, soldier. Nathan will have a fit if you come back any later.”

Kaz took a step toward Boss, as cautious as he was with Aina when he first met her. This would be a very vulnerable position for Kaz—an easy way for Boss to hoist him up and then throw him to the dirt.

“Make it fast, Miller or I _will_ leave you,” he threatened.

Kaz carefully set his left arm over Boss’s shoulder, wary of hitting him with the crutch a third time. He lifted his good leg, and Boss easily hooked his arm under Kaz’s knee. The second one followed, and Kaz felt extremely guilty about the way the prosthetic must have been digging into Boss’s leg. Boss hoisted him up one last time and then began walking.

At first, it was uncomfortable. It reminded Kaz too much of that night when his mother carried him through the streets. Only now, instead of limbs that were charred and strangely his but not his at the same time, there was nothing. Kaz could feel each muscle in his right arm twitch, but there was only air. After a while, the rhythmic pace to Boss’s walking lulled Kaz into a sense of calm. He wasn’t sure if he could trust it, but Kaz was too tired not to give in for a little while.

 

“Where were you? Boss, you do realize that he is still very weak, don’t you? Malnourishment and atrophy don’t go away over a couple of weeks!”

“He’s fine.”

“You only think that because you’re close to being a freak of nature. Most humans cannot handle what you go through, Boss. Don’t expect so much out of a child. Do you want him to die here?”

Kaz groaned and rolled his head from side to side. It was like the day that he first woke up in the hospital, only now he could open his eyes. Nathan and Boss were just outside of his room, but the door was still open. Nathan’s eyes, sharp like a hawk’s, glanced over the moment that Kaz moved. He shut the door quietly and blocked out the rest of the conversation.

Kaz shoved himself upright against the bed, stretching his neck from side to side. His crutch and prosthetic were removed and sitting nearby. A plate of food was untouched on the bedside table. Kaz’s stomach grumbled faintly, but then he remembered the boy in the alley. His stomach churned unhappily at the thought. How had he not been found yet? Surely the rest of the children had died and were disposed of, why not him?

Kaz looked up when the door opened, meeting Boss’s eye. Something was off about him.

“You fell asleep halfway to the hospital and have been out cold since,” he explained. 

Boss took his usual seat next to Kaz’s bed, and only then did Kaz realize what was wrong. Boss wasn’t in his entire uniform. He was wearing a white undershirt, and his pants were untucked from his boots. A nasty dark purple bruise was forming around his mouth and chin. All at once, Kaz felt guilty and proud of what he’d done.

“Don’t get too cocky, your shiner is worse,” Boss muttered. He rifled around in his pocket and, seemingly by magic, found a cigar and his lighter.

“Why do you smoke?” Kaz asked. He discreetly tried to raise his hand and prod at his tender cheek, but Boss caught him and smirked at the action.

“Lots of reasons,” Boss answered.

Kaz frowned, but it was just the sort of answer he had come to expect from Boss. “Can I try?”

“Smoking?” A pause. “No. Nathan would castrate me.”

“Aren’t you the Boss? Who cares what Nathan thinks?” Kaz pressed.

“Because, if I don’t listen to what he says, he could decide to withhold morphine the next time I get shot,” Boss replied. The two sat in silence for a while, while Boss brought his cigar to life. He took a long drag, and then slowly exhaled the stinky smoke.

Kaz reached out his hand. Boss glanced up at him, holding his cigar between his teeth. Instead of passing over the cigar, he passed over the lighter. Kaz flicked it open like he had seen Boss do before, and fiddled with the switch until he got the flame to ignite.

“I knew an officer of the Kempeitai that smoked a lot.”

Boss grunted.

“I know that the Kempeitai did a lot of bad things to a lot of people,” Kaz continued. “What happened to the officers?”

“Most of them were charged as criminals and are in prison now. Some escaped judgment, but not many. There won’t be very far they can go until someone recognizes them and turns them in. Like you said, Kempeitai did a lot of bad things.”

Once he was bored of staring at the flame, Kaz closed the lighter and passed it back to Boss. Boss shoved the lighter in his pocket once more, and then took stock of Kaz’s bruised face.

“Here,” he said, standing up. The man hiked up his shirt, showing Kaz the right side of his body. Where Kaz had smacked him with his cane, a huge welt had formed. It was angry and red all around the welt. The rest of it was raised and puffy and a sickening mix of yellow and purple.

Kaz cringed. “That looks bad.”

“I’ve had worse, but it hurts like a bitch,” Boss said. He lowered his shirt, and then kicked his right leg up onto Kaz’s bed. He pulled back his right pant leg. The same ugly mark was on his leg. “You’ve got a good arm, Miller.”

Kaz swelled with pride from the compliment. “I’m not a helpless cripple.”

Boss nodded and flopped down in his chair once more. “I know that you’re not.”

Silence permeated the room, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. The sounds of Boss inhaling and exhaling were enough to cover the ticking of the clock and the quiet sounds of the hospital around them.

“The lady at the military base gave me a packet of papers to give to you,” Kaz said, interrupting the pleasant quiet. “I don’t know where the papers are now.”

“It was junk,” Boss said, flapping his hand. “I know what needs to be done when we get you to the states. You don’t need to worry about what other people tell you.”

Kaz nodded.

Later that night, after a few more hours of quiet went by, and Kaz was close to falling asleep sitting up, Boss stood and stretched his back.

“We leave tomorrow afternoon, Miller. Be ready for a long plane ride. You should get some rest now, while you can,” he advised.

“Can you call me Kazuhira?” Kaz asked. His voice was rough with sleep, and it made his throat scratchy with the need for water. Kaz blinked, confused by his own question, but he couldn’t stop himself. “You did it earlier. Not all the time, just when no one is around.”

Boss worked his jaw, almost imperceptibly, back and forth. “We both know the risks of using your real name,” he grumbled. “If we get too comfortable, and if I slip up—“

“You don’t slip up,” Kaz butted in. “I’ve never seen you make a mistake before.”

Boss snorted at that. He rubbed his bruised jaw with one hand, while the other came to rest on his tender waist. “I’ve made more mistakes around you than any other person. We’re sticking to Miller, and that’s final.”

Kaz didn’t know what he was expecting. He knew the kind of person that Boss was. He wasn’t the kind to bend over backward with the risk of trashing all his hard work. “Yes, sir.”

Boss turned and walked to the door of Kaz’s room, his boots heavy on the linoleum. “Miller?”

Kaz glanced up. Boss was turned away from him. “Yes, Boss?”

“Good night.”

Boss flicked off the room light and closed the door after him, effectively sending Kaz into darkness.

 

**May 3, 1952.**

 

Unlike the morning before, Kaz awoke to a gentle shaking of his shoulder and a soft voice. Kaz’s eyes rolled in their sockets for a moment before he could muster up the strength to open them. Outside the thin curtains of his room, the sky was still dark. Kaz pretended for a moment, blissfully unaware, that his mother was waking him up to go start up the store with her.

“Kaz.”

Kaz inhaled deeply and then turned his head to face Nathan. His doctor was smiling at him and stood back when he made eye contact with Kaz.

“You didn’t eat yesterday, and there won’t be much time for eating today. I’m going to hook you up to an IV, okay?”

Kaz nodded. Did he have a choice? He extended his arm for Nathan and waited patiently while Nathan tied off his arm and expertly slid the needle into him. Kaz barely winced. He loathed how used to hospitals he had become in a few short weeks.

“I saw that you got into a fight with Boss,” Nathan mused. He sat down in Boss’s chair, watching Kaz.

Kaz stretched his back out and then shuffled to sit up against his pillows. “It wasn’t much of a fight,” he replied, his voice raw.

“It could have been worse, Kaz. Boss could’ve strangled you if he wanted to,” Nathan warned.

“Boss wouldn’t do that to me,” Kaz assured. Truth be told, he wasn’t quite sure why he thought that. At first, he thought that Boss wouldn’t hurt him at all. That had been washed away in an instant. Now he was riding on blind faith that the man wouldn’t strangle him. Kaz frowned. “How long have you known Boss?”

“A very long time,” Nathan replied. “Since the war started. At first, he was in Europe fighting. He teamed up with the Russians, but when that got out of control, he was brought back to the states to fight in the Pacific Islands.

“He’s been in the military his whole life, and so was his dad and his grandpa. It’s just who he is, and what his family is about. He was in charge of our group, and he’s still climbing ranks. One day he could be a general.”

Kaz nodded. “Is his name really Boss?”

Nathan furrowed his brows at Kaz and then burst into raucous laughter. He threw his head back against the chair as he laughed, unaware of Kaz’s cheeks as they heated up.

“I’m sorry,” Nathan wheezed, once he had regained control. “I shouldn’t laugh, you don’t know much about Americans. No, his name isn’t Boss.” Nathan paused, rubbing at his chin. He had the slightest amount of stubble growing in along his jawline. “I don’t actually know Boss’s name. He was on a secret mission in Russia, and all I know is that he earned the moniker Naked Snake.

“I wouldn’t try calling him that, though. He hates that,” Nathan added.

Kaz nodded, filing the information away for later use. “What happened to his eye?”

“I’m not sure about that either,” the doctor admitted. “I met him after that happened. I joined him in Japan. Everything before that is pretty much a mystery.”

Kaz nodded again. He chewed at the inside of his lip, waiting for Nathan to say something else about Boss… about Snake? Despite being told not to, Kaz couldn’t help but think that Snake suited him far better than Boss. 

“We leave for America today. Are you ready for that?” Nathan asked.

“I’m not sure,” Kaz replied. “Just thinking about it makes me sick,” he continued. Kaz’s mouth seemed to contort on its own as if holding back something disgusting. Kaz’s blue eyes flicked up to Nathan’s dark ones. He couldn’t bring himself to admit what he was thinking. What if Boss was just outside the door, listening in on their conversation?

Nathan gave Kaz a pitying smile. He stood, and wrapped his arms around Kaz’s shoulders. He was warm and strong and drew Kaz in with confidence that made all Kaz’s fears fly out the window. Kaz allowed his head to rest on Nathan’s chest.

“You’re going to be fine, Kaz. Boss won’t let anything happen to you.”

 

The rest of the day went by in a blur. Before he knew it, Kaz was strapped in on a huge airplane. Boss was across from him, with Nathan to his left. Other American soldiers and various government employees were scattered about the plane. All of them seemed to be just fine, but Kaz was positive that he was shaking so hard that he was going to fall apart.

He looked to Nathan for reassurance and was given a soft smile.

When he looked to Boss, the man was staring back at him the way that he always did. Immediately, Kaz felt better. If Boss wasn’t scared, then Kaz wasn’t scared. There was no reason to be afraid.

Kaz craned his neck around to stare out of the window as the plane took off from the ground. With his knuckles white as he gripped the edge of his seat, Kaz watched as Tokyo became smaller and smaller until he could no longer make out the individual buildings. Before long, they were over open ocean.

Kaz stared at the blue expanse in wonder. He knew that the ocean was gigantic, but it had never impacted him before now. Now, all he could see in every direction, from any window in the plane, was shining blue water. Kaz gulped. What if the plane went down? Looking for a landline once more, Kaz glanced at Boss. He was leaning forward, his arms crossed on his legs.

There was something inexplicable that happened to Kaz when he looked at Boss. His heart pounded a little harder, and all the worries of leaving Japan dissipated. Kaz looked at Nathan, who still had that pitying smile. Kaz smiled back at him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had truly smiled at someone.

There was no reason to be scared.

 

**May 10, 1952.**

 

Kaz convinced himself that he wasn’t scared up until the moment that he was meant to go up on a stage and receive a litany of awards from the President of the United States. Kaz had been told over and over how to pronounce the man’s name correctly, but he just couldn’t get it. What were Americans thinking, naming their children Harry Truman? What kind of a name was that? Kaz muttered it to himself over and over, to the point that the syllables lost their meaning entirely.

The spring day was pleasant, even in the scorching sun. Kaz couldn’t tell how many people had shown up to the ceremony. Hundreds? Thousands? Maybe a million? Kaz’s ‘brothers’ had all been given front-row seats. They all sat in their pressed military uniforms, looking official and overwhelmingly proud. Kaz was given a pass on their names; he could blame it on the trauma that he had endured.

Nathan sat to the far left of the front row, watching Kaz with a mix of emotions. Kaz couldn’t decipher his expression. Boss was on stage with Kaz, also receiving medals and recognition for saving Kaz from the Japanese government. Kaz waited in agony, hoping that Boss’s real name would be announced, but he had no such luck. Kaz shot the man a glower. Was he so important that the President didn’t dare say his name? All in all, Kaz knew that he should have been grateful that Boss showed up at all.

After the tiring ceremony, with Kaz’s leg and every bone in his body crying out for relief, there was a party. Nathan assured him it was modest, but people surrounded Kaz at all times. Everyone wanted to talk to the ‘bravest man in all of the US’. Kaz had hoped that Boss would help him, but he was nowhere to be seen.

A second glass of champagne was shoved into Kaz’s hand by one of his fellow soldiers. Nathan, standing a few feet away from the crowd, watched over Kaz like a mother hen.

“Where did they keep you?” a soldier, nicknamed Rhino—Kaz couldn’t understand how all of them had come to earn animal nicknames, did Nathan have one?—pressed. “A dungeon?”

“Nothing like that,” Kaz answered. For a while, it had been simple questions about how he was doing and what he was going to do now. After about an hour of drinks and good food, people became less cautious of the questions they asked. Out of the corner of his eye, Kaz could see a woman with a notepad, ready to write down everything that he said.

“What was it like?”

“I’m not sure where I was,” Kaz said. “I was outside sometimes, and in a building other times. Sometimes, I was so exhausted and hungry up that I couldn’t wake up for more than a few seconds.”

A girl nearby, a girlfriend of another soldier, gasped.

“They kept food from me. They split my food between another prisoner and me. She was just as starved as I was, I felt so bad for her.” Kaz let his eyes roam. There was a massive group around him. It was so quiet that you could’ve heard a pin drop. “Her name was Aina.”

“A Japanese girl?”

“What did she do?”

“Was she a traitor to the government?”

“I’m not sure, I don’t speak Japanese,” Kaz laughed with relative ease. Others laughed as well, and then the silence returned. It felt good, having so many eyes on him. Even if he was lying, he could spin some truth into the story. “At first, they fed us pretty well. And then they started to withhold food as the years went by. I had no idea it had been years; I was just trying to get through. I wanted to keep both of us alive. She didn’t deserve to be there.” Kaz shifted his jaw side to side. Talking about Aina, even a version of her that was false, made his heart ache.

“Miller, you don’t gotta say anything. Not if you don’t want to.”

Kaz smiled at the soldier, nicknamed Crocodile, grateful for the gesture. “It’s okay,” Kaz assured.

“What happened to the girl?” someone nearby asked.

“She died,” Kaz said.

No one made a sound. Kaz let out a puff of air through his nose, holding back his tears as best as he could. He tried desperately to work a way out of the blame. Or would it be better to blame himself? Everyone was eating out of the palm of his hand, what was the harm in pushing it further?

“It was my fault.”

“Don’t say that!”

“You wouldn’t have done something like that. You didn’t kill her. Those sick fucks were the ones that killed her.”

Kaz curled his nose. “Yeah. They were sick. The doctors cut off my arm and leg without a care in the world of who they were doing it to. They didn’t care that I was young, or that I’d lost everything. Why would they care? I was just some _freak_ in their country that didn’t belong.”

Kaz stewed in bitterness before balking at his words. What in the _Hell_ had he been thinking? Was he too obvious? Kaz looked up at Nathan for support, barely able to see him through the fog of tears that was gathering.

“Alright!” Nathan announced, pushing his way through the crowd and to Kaz. “That’s enough. This is supposed to be a party. You’re alive, Miller! We’re all glad that you’re here with us.”

The ones that had gathered around Kaz stopped to give him a few more kind words, before dispersing. Before long, the party was up and running again. People stopped to praise Kaz for his courage and then moved on. Nathan took a seat next to Kaz, rolling his neck to work out the kinks.

“That was some story,” he mused.

“I’ve always been good at lying,” Kaz replied. “Besides, it wasn’t all a lie. There was a lot of true stuff, too.”

“Did someone you know really die?” Nathan asked.

Kaz immediately frowned. “I thought you said this was supposed to be a party?” Kaz asked, trying his best to keep his voice light. 

“Right, sorry,” Nathan murmured. “Have you eaten enough?”

“Anymore and I’ll get sick,” Kaz replied, desperately trying to smile again. “Where’s Boss?”

“He left right after the ceremony,” Nathan told him. “He’s not one for crowds. He doesn’t like the feeling of being surrounded.”

“You know him well.”

“What can I say?” Nathan said with a little laugh. “For months, I did everything with that man. Our team was inseparable. You’ve seen how they all act. We were lucky that we all got out alive. Well, except for one.”

“I’m still alive,” Kaz replied. Nathan’s mouth was drawn into a thin line. Kaz looked away and made a note to himself. No more jokes about replacing Miller.

Kaz sipped at the champagne that was handed to him. Nathan had warned him it was alcohol, and he didn’t want to get drunk. What if he slipped up?

“When can I see Boss again?” Kaz asked. “He’s not gone forever, right?”

“No,” Nathan said. Kaz saw him visibly relaxed, now that the subject was back to something a little more comfortable. “They’ve set you up in his house for now. He was the one who advocated for it, saying that you should stay with him until you’re back on your feet. Foot.” Nathan grimaced. “Sorry.”

Kaz smiled at Nathan. “It’s okay. It took me a while to get used to it, too.”

“I shouldn’t have to get used to it,” Nathan argued. “I’m your doctor, Kaz. I should be more than used to it by now.”

Kaz shrugged, not sure what else he could say to make Nathan understand that he was okay with the slip-up. The party went on for a few more hours. After the second flute of champagne, Nathan refused to let Kaz have anymore. Anyone who questioned him was quickly shot down with Doctor’s Orders.

At the end of the afternoon, around four p.m., there was a line of people wishing Kaz well and begging that they contacted him as soon as he was settled down. Kaz’s uniform pockets were stuffed with papers that had phone numbers and names scrawled on them. Nathan remained by Kaz’s side the entire time and even got them on their way towards the military base.

“It’s near the ocean, so hopefully that will be nice,” Nathan said a few minutes into their taxi ride.

Kaz barely heard him, too busy staring out the window of the car at the gigantic buildings and the people that they passed. He could barely believe the size of the city that they were in. Surely it was ten times the size of the Tokyo that Kaz knew. All over the place were people, walking dogs and talking with friends. The girls wore pretty dresses and bright-colored pants. Kaz could hardly comprehend seeing a girl wearing a pair of pants.

Once the initial culture shock wore off and Kaz relaxed, his mind wandered to other things.

“What do I do now?” he asked.

Nathan occupied staring out his window, hummed quietly. “That’s up to you, Kaz. The government is going to be paying you a lot of money. You could do nothing and live comfortably. Or you could get a job, maybe one that doesn’t include reading so much. Or one that does, so you can learn.” He trailed off, mumbling about other options that Kaz had.

“I want to be useful to Boss,” Kaz said. “I don’t know how to do that. I’ve been nothing but a burden to him.”

Nathan pulled a face. “To be useful to Boss is not easy. Especially since you can’t fight. But Boss isn’t going to turn you away, Miller,” he said. Kaz was going to question the use of his fake name but remembered the taxi driver sitting in front of them. “He saved you because you’re his soldier. He knew that you weren’t going to die. He sees something in all of us, maybe something that we can’t see. He saw something in _you_.”

Kaz smirked at the sappy response. “Too much wine, Doc?” he teased.

Nathan smirked back. “I could beat you in a drinking contest any day, Miller. Just try me.”

Kaz laughed at that. He relaxed once more in the backseat of the car. At least Nathan knew how to cheer up a dower atmosphere.

It seemed as if all too soon, Kaz and Nathan were dropped off just outside of a huge plot of land, scattered with buildings. Nathan grinned at the sight of the boring buildings that greeted them.

“Ah, it’s good to be home,” he sighed. He stuck his hands in his uniform pockets and began walking. “C’mon, I’ll take you to Boss’s place. He lives like a King here, even though he doesn’t do much with it.”

“Why not?” Kaz asked, managing to keep pace with Nathan fairly easily. He noticed right away that Nathan was shortening his stride so that Kaz could stick close.

“It’s just not who he is,” Nathan said. “He’s got a high rank, so they give him pretty much anything he could ask for. He’s got the space to do whatever he wants, but he just has some furniture and a few dishes. Just enough for him to get by.”

Kaz nodded, even though he didn’t understand. If he had the chance to live like a King, he would take it and do everything that he possibly could with it. Why give up luxury when it was within his grasp?

They walked in a companionable silence until they entered an area of the base that was more like a neighborhood than a military base. Nathan led him right up to one of the doors and then backed up a step.

“Here’s your stop. Boss should be in there. If not, there’s a key around the back and hidden in a flower pot. It opens the back door, not the front door.”

“Aren’t you going to stay?” Kaz asked.

Nathan shook his head. “I’ve got to get back to where I belong, too. They gave me a week off, but I don’t know if I can sit around for a week. I need to get back to the hospital.”

“Do you like being a doctor?” Kaz asked.

Nathan nodded. “It’s got its perks. It can be sad sometimes, especially during a war, but other times it’s very rewarding. If I wasn’t a doctor, then you might not be standing here right now.”

“I can’t ever thank you enough,” Kaz whispered.

“There’s no need to thank me, Kaz,” Nathan replied. He grinned at Kaz. “Make sure Boss doesn’t let you rot away in there. If you’re bored, you can come to the hospital and help. We always need volunteers.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Kaz agreed. He watched Nathan as the man turned on his heel, and began walking back the way they came. He looked back once, a few hundred feet away, and waved. Kaz smiled back at him, hoping that he could see the expression even from far away.

Kaz turned back to the door in front of him once Nathan rounded a corner and was out of sight. Unsure about how he was going to knock, Kaz resorted to kicking his foot against the door a few times. It was totally unlike the paper doors that Kaz was used to. There was a little glass ball in the center of the door.

There was a shuffling inside of the house, the sound of metal clanking around, and then the door opened. Boss looked like he always did, professional yet somehow unkempt. His bandana was missing, and Kaz couldn’t help but think that he looked a little weird without it. He had a cigar between his teeth, a black shirt that might have been slightly too small for him, and his olive army pants.

“Are you always in uniform?” Kaz asked.

Boss grunted and stepped aside. Kaz hobbled into Boss’s home and kicked off his shoe by the door. He instantly noticed that Boss was walking around with his shoes on. How odd. Boss left Kaz and went further into the house. Kaz, like a lost puppy, followed Boss.

Boss flopped down on a stiff-looking couch in front of a dusty coffee table, and a dustier TV. Kaz wasn’t sure what the thing was for, but it certainly looked unused. Kaz sat down on the opposite side of the couch. He stretched out for a moment and then set to work removing his prosthetic and slipping his arm out of the crutch.

“I can’t believe they made me stand for that whole ceremony. Don’t they know that this thing hurts?” Kaz asked. He snorted at his words.

Boss worked the cigar back and forth between his teeth.

Kaz bit down on his lower lip. Did he say something wrong?

“People were asking for you at the party,” he continued, hoping to get something out of Boss. “Crocodile and Rhino.” Kaz’s eyes flickered to Boss’s lighter that was sitting innocently on the table. Kaz must have interrupted him. “How do you guys earn your animal nicknames?” he asked.

Boss’s eye narrowed by a fraction of an inch.

Kaz leaned forward and grabbed the lighter from the table. He flicked open the top and fiddled with it until the small flame sparked to life. Boss’s gaze shifted from Kaz to the lighter. Kaz held out his arm, and Boss leaned forward. Kaz had to move a little farther, rather than being met in the middle by Boss. Kaz held the lighter to the end of the cigar and watched with baited breath as Boss stayed there.

“Can I get an animal nickname?” Kaz asked. His voice was becoming tight in his throat. His mouth was moving faster than his brain could keep up. “I want one like yours,” _stop, idiot!_ he thought, but he had no control over his words, “Snake.”

The way Nathan phrased it, Kaz was expecting an explosion of rage from Snake. Hell, an explosion would have been interesting. Instead, Snake stayed and puffed on his cigar until it lit up. Then he leaned back, snatched his lighter from Kaz, and retreated down a hallway. Kaz sat on the couch, dumbfounded and waiting for anything to happen. Surely, Snake had planted a microscopic bomb on his hand when their fingers touched, and Kaz only had a few seconds left to live.

Instead, Kaz sat on the couch and stared down the hallway after him. A door clicked open, and then shut.

After what felt like a year, Kaz stood from the couch. He left the prosthetic, deciding to use only his crutch for the time being. He worked his way down the hall, inspecting the doors that he passed. One led to a bathroom, unlike anything Kaz had seen. It wasn’t far off from the hospital in Japan, but it was still absurdly different. Curious, Kaz ducked inside the room. There was a huge mirror on one wall, and Kaz stared at himself.

The boy that stared back was nothing that Kaz thought he was. His hair was ratty and too long, and an obnoxious shade of yellow. No wonder so many people had stared at him in Japan. His eyebrows were thick but did nothing to draw attention away from the striking blue-gray of his eyes. Straight nose, high cheekbones, but a jaw that betrayed his age. Kaz was drawn again to the shape of his eyes. Sure, they were blue, but they were unmistakably Japanese. How had no one seen it already?

Kaz curled his lip at the boy in the mirror. His sleeve hung lifelessly at his side, and he was overall far too skinny for someone of his age. Kaz left the bathroom as soon as he could and poked his head into the rest of the rooms. Two were spare bedrooms, with a fine coating of dust all around. Had this place been empty for the whole war?

The last door that Kaz tried creaked open ominously. Snake was sitting on the edge of the bed, facing a window with the curtains drawn. There was a desk in the corner and a door that must have led to another bathroom. Kaz stayed in the entrance to the room, waiting for Snake to react.

“Boss?” he pressed.

Snake took a long drag on his cigar and blew the smoke languidly from his lips. Deciding it was better than nothing, Kaz stepped into the room. He approached Snake’s bed but didn’t dare sit down on it without permission. For all he knew, Snake was livid and ready to snap.

“So who told you?” he asked.

“Nathan,” Kaz said.

“Shoulda guessed,” Snake grumbled. He leaned back on his hands, keeping the cigar in his mouth between his teeth. He was an expert at talking around it. “He has a soft spot for you. Treats you like a little kid.”

“I’m still pretty young…” A little, horrible voice told Kaz to push his luck. “…Snake.”

“Don’t wear it out,” Snake growled.

“Okay, Boss,” Kaz replied with ease. 

Snake shot him a smirk. “You’re a real piece of work. Remind me why I saved your ass?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Kaz said. He glanced pointedly at the spot beside Snake. After a moment’s hesitation, Snake patted the bed next to him. Kaz sat down, keeping an inch or two of space between them.

Even from a short distance, Kaz was sure that he could feel the heat radiating off Snake. Kaz had only felt it two times before. In the train station, and on the way back to the hospital. Both times, Kaz wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. Perhaps pain or an electric shock. He was as warm as Nathan was, although the warmth didn’t seem to go deeper than his physical body.

“What should I do, Boss?” Kaz asked.

“Why are you asking me?” Snake quipped. “You’re your own man.”

Kaz snorted and turned his head to stare at Snake. Always nonchalant, Snake continued looking out of the closed blinds. Outside, Kaz could hear a few birds and some soldiers enjoying a bit of time off.

“I’m asking because you’ve always told me what to do. I want to be useful, Boss. I can’t sit around and waste the life that you gave me.”

Snake’s head turned, just enough for his eye to land on Kaz. He’d caught it, without Kaz realizing what he had said. Snake shrugged. “There’s not much you can do,” he said. “You’re no soldier. You can get a job. Maybe go to college.”

“College?”

“It’s a type of school in America,” Snake explained. “The type for businessmen and lawyers. For brainiacs. On second thought, maybe you shouldn’t go to college.”

“Are you insulting me?” Kaz balked.

Snake shrugged again. “You don’t have to do anything, Miller.” His words hung heavy between them. “Sit around for all I care. It’s your life.”

Kaz knew that what Snake was saying was true, but he also knew that it wasn’t the whole truth. Certainly, the life was his, but he owed it to Snake. If the man wanted something, Kaz would do it in a heartbeat.

“You told me to learn English, and I did. You told me to go to America, and I did. I don’t know what to do now,” Kaz urged. “I don’t know how America works. I don’t know how any of this works.”

“Stop whining,” Snake chided. “You sound like a girl with all of that complaining. Ask Nathan if you’re so worried about doing something.”

“I did ask Nathan, and he told me the same thing that you’re telling me.”

“Then maybe you should take our advice, Miller. Older and wiser. We finished a war and only just came home. It’s time to relax for a little while.”

“But Nathan’s not going to relax. He’s going right back to the hospital.” Kaz paused, looking over Snake’s profile. He had a slight bump in his nose, perhaps from where he had broken it once. His beard was scruffier than Kaz had ever seen it. Between his teeth, the cigar slowly crumbled away. “What are _you_ going to do, Boss?”

Snake moved to lean his elbows on his knees. He clasped his fingers and rested his chin atop them. “I’m a soldier. I can’t relax. There’s always trouble brewing and battles to be fought. There’s already trouble; communism in Russia and China, and there’s something bad going on in Vietnam.”

“Don’t you think you deserve a break?” Kaz asked.

“No, not really. I told you, I don’t need to rest. I’ll be back out there before you know it.”

Kaz nodded solemnly. Something akin to admiration was coiling in Kaz’s chest. Why should he stop and rest if Snake wasn’t going to? If Kaz was going to be a good soldier, he needed to stick with his Boss. Although, he wasn’t sure what that meant for him since he couldn’t be a real soldier. 

“Snake, I…”

“I told you, quit calling me that,” Snake grumbled. He plucked his cigar from his mouth and finally turned to look at Kaz directly.

In the filtered orange glow of the setting sun, Snake looked like a completely different person. The harsh lines on his face seemed softer, and his steely blue eye was lit up a thousand different shades. Kaz couldn’t place why his heart was suddenly beating so hard. He maintained eye contact with Snake, unwilling to be the one to back down first.

Kaz leaned in a little closer to Snake and could swear he saw his Boss do the same. What had once been inches was now only a hair between them. Snake’s hand drifted to Kaz’s cheek, and he leaned into the touch. Kaz closed his eyes, simply feeling the weight of Snake’s palm against his skin. When Kaz opened his eyes again, Snake was so close that the tips of their noses could have touched.

Something within Snake clicked.

His eyebrows furrowed together, and he dropped his hand from Kaz’s cheek to his chest. He shoved Kaz away.

Taken aback by the abrupt gesture, Kaz furrowed his eyebrows back at Snake.

“What the Hell, Boss?” he griped, although he wasn’t quite sure what he was mad about.

“Get out,” Boss mumbled. He puffed on the last traces of his cigar, his actions perplexing.

“Where am I supposed to go?” Kaz snapped. His blood was starting to boil beneath his skin. 

“To one of the other rooms—the couch, I don’t care. Just get out.”

“Boss!” Kaz objected. Snake didn’t budge. Kaz clenched his jaw tight to keep from saying something that he would later regret. He stood from Snake’s bed and stomped as best as he could to the door. Kaz paused for a second longer just outside of the doorway, and then kicked it shut with all of his might. The following _bang_ that rattled the entire house was more satisfying than Kaz thought it would be.

Kaz retreated to one of the spare rooms, the one that was farthest away from Snake. He patted the dust out of the blankets and then threw himself under the covers. The uniform was uncomfortable to be in, but Kaz didn’t care.

What the Hell was Snake’s problem? Kaz hadn’t done anything wrong! Kaz threw the covers up over his head and cocooned himself in the blankets. If Snake wanted to be a jerk, then _fine_. Kaz could make up his mind about what he was going to do. He wouldn’t let some emotionally repressed asshole dictate his life.

 

**May 11, 1952.**

 

The next morning, Kaz wasn’t surprised to find that Snake was awake before him. The man was standing in his kitchen, his back leaning against the hard counter-top. Kaz, making a very obvious loop around Snake, sat down on the couch. He hadn’t properly taken care of himself the night before, and now he had to double up on his work to avoid any kind of infection or other unnecessary pain.

“Have you thought about what you’ll do?” Snake asked.

The question made Kaz’s body itch. Who did Snake think he was? 

“Yes.”

Snake sipped noisily from his coffee mug. “What did you decide on?”

“If I go to college, will it get me far away from you?” Kaz bit out.

How Kaz wished he could have seen Snake’s face because the silence that followed was too good to be true. He reveled in the few moments he got, able to catch Snake off guard. Moments like these were rare, if nonexistent.

“Yes,” Snake said, his tone bordering on cautious.

“Then that’s what I want to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a Twitter! Come yell at/with me about not updating on a regular schedule: @Nonmurdering


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